Some Velvet Morning

NANCY A. COLLINS

NANCY A. COLLINS, a resident of Atlanta, is the award-winning author often novels, including Lynch: A Gothik Western and Angels on Fire, and more than fifty short stories. “Some Velvet Morning” is a new installment in a cycle of stories about Sonja Blue, a punk vampire/vampire slayer first introduced in Sunglasses After Dark (1989), and whose adventures continue in In the Blood (1992), Paint It Black (1995), and A Dozen Black Roses (1996), as well as in her own comic-book series. A collected series of Sonja Blue stories has recently been reissued by White Wolf Publishing in a special illustrated tenth-anniversary edition.

SHE WAS THE most attractive woman he’d ever seen outside a movie theatre. She was not just pretty, she was beautiful, and the way models and starlets are beautiful. Her skin was creamy, as translucent as pearl; her long, wavy hair was the color of raw honey. Her fire-engine-red lips matched her low-cut one-piece with spaghetti straps and revealing side slit. She was wearing black-patent-leather open-toed shoes with four-inch heels, which revealed that her toenails, as well as fingernails, were painted the exact same shade as her lips. And she was smiling at him from across the hotel bar.

First he had to double-check to make sure there wasn’t another, younger man possibly sitting directly behind him before he dared respond. No. There wasn’t anyone else she could possibly be paying attention to. It had to be him.

“Hey, buddy,” he said, pushing a ten across the damp bar top. “I’d like to buy that lady a drink.”

The bartender nodded and palmed the bill without saying a word. A couple of minutes later a fresh Bloody Mary was placed in front of the woman in red.

She lifted the drink in a half toast and smiled at him. And this time there was no mistaking it: she was smiling one hundred percent at him.

He nervously slicked back his thinning hair and coughed lightly into his fist, surreptitiously sniffing it to make sure his breath was passable. Satisfied, he slid off the barstool and tried to look nonchalant as he strolled to the end of the bar.

“I couldn’t help noticing you were alone,” he said, trying not to sound nervous. “Would you mind terribly much if I joined you for a drink?”

“Why should I mind?” she said, flashing yet another one of those smiles. “After all, you were the one kind enough to buy it for me.”

He moved to sit next to her, then stopped and looked around the bar. He was a thousand miles away from home, his wife, and their friends and associates, but old habits were hard to break.

“Would you mind if we sat somewhere a little more … private?” he said, gesturing to a booth in one of the shadowy corners.

“Whatever you like-?” She paused, waiting for him to supply his name.

“John,” he said, his cheeks coloring slightly. “My name is John.”

“Of course it is,” she replied, no hint of irony in her honeyed voice. “My name is Phaedra.”

“That’s an unusual name,” he said as he slid into the booth beside her.

“It’s from the classics. Phaedra was a queen who was possessed by unnatural desires.”

“How fascinating,” he said, feigning interest. He suspected Phaedra was as much her name as John was his. It sounded too deliberate to be real.

Once they were safely in the booth, he went into the same little song and dance he always did on business trips: he inflated his importance at the firm, while avoiding telling her the exact company he worked for and what it was he really did for a living; and when she asked him where he was from, he gave her the correct state but lied about the city. And some time during the small talk he let his hand fall on Phaedra’s leg just above the knee. To his relief, she did not shift about uncomfortably or demand that he remove his hand. Her dress was silky smooth under his palm, and beneath its flimsiness he could feel warm flesh and taut muscle. It had been years since his wife’s thigh had felt like anything besides a bag of suet.

He had to fight to keep from choking on his drink when she shifted her leg so that his hand slid further up her thigh, towards the heat between her legs. His suspicions were confirmed: she wasn’t wearing panties. He began to sweat, his scalp itching under his thinning hair. His crotch throbbed like a high-school freshman with a case of blue balls.

“I, uh, have a room here at the hotel…” he stammered clumsily.

She shook her head and wrinkled her nose in disgust. “I detest hotel rooms. They’re so impersonal. Why don’t we go to my place, instead?”

“Sure. Whatever you want, baby.”

As he heard himself saying those words, he wondered what the hell he thought he was doing. He had to catch a flight first thing in the morning, not to mention turn the rental car back in at the airport. He didn’t have the time to waste going to some hottie’s apartment out in the ‘burbs. But when he looked into Phaedra’s eyes, he knew he would do whatever it took to get her into bed, even if it meant flying standby.

As he signed for the drinks, she slid out of the booth and motioned for him to follow.

“Let’s go in my car,” she said, holding up a key ring attached to a pair of red plastic dice.

He knew he should protest. The last thing he needed was to get stranded out in the middle of nowhere, unable to get back to the hotel in time to pick up his bags and make his flight home. There was something about the arrangement that set off an alarm in the back of his head, but it was quickly muffled by the lust rising from belowdecks.

Phaedra led him out the side door of the hotel bar to the parking lot outside. She walked ahead of him with quick, purposeful strides, which made her jiggle in all the right places.

“Here’s my car,” she said, gesturing to a little convertible, painted the same color red as her lips and nails. “Hop in, John.”

He opened the passenger door halfway, then paused, indecision flickering across his brow.

“I don’t know … maybe I should follow you….”

“You can do that, if you like,” she said with a shrug. “I live out on the lake; it’s not that far, but it’s easy to get lost if you don’t know where you’re going.”

He suddenly had a vivid mental picture of himself driving around unfamiliar suburbs in the dark, a raging hard-on in his pants, and with no clear idea of how to get back to the hotel.

“Okay,” he said with a resigned sigh. “I’ll ride with you.”

He wasn’t sure if Phaedra was driving particularly fast, or if merely riding in an open convertible in the dead of night made it seem that way. The wind tore at him, turning his tie into a wind sock and exposing his comb-over for the lie it was.

As they sped through the night, she rubbed his thigh gently, moving her hand closer and closer to his groin. He licked his lips and coughed nervously into his fist. The lights of the strip malls and main boulevard had long since disappeared, plunging them into an inky darkness that was relieved only by the glow from the dashboard and the beams of the headlights on the road ahead.

“Where is it you said you live?” he shouted over the roar of the wind and the engine.

“Red Velvet manor!” she shouted back.

“Is that some kind of subdivision?”

“Lord, no!” She laughed. “That’s what it was called a hundred years ago! It’s something of an unofficial landmark around here. It used to be a brothel for the superrich. All the rooms had red velvet wallpaper-that’s where it got its name. Now it’s a private residence. I live there.”

“All by yourself?”

“No.”

Before he could ask another question, the car rounded a turn in the road, and he saw their final destination. It was an impressive late Victorian pile, with turrets and huge picture windows that glowed like the eyes of a jack-o’-lantern, situated on a clifflike outcropping that overlooked the lake. Judging from the utter darkness surrounding the estate, the nearest neighbors had to be over a mile away in every direction.

Phaedra steered the car up the lengthy drive that led to the old-fashioned covered carriage port at the side of the house, the gravel crunching loudly under the wheels.

“Wow, this place really is something,” he said, leaning back in his seat to ogle the building. “How much does a house like this go for, nowadays?”

Phaedra shrugged indifferently. It was clear that the subject did not interest her in the slightest. “A million, maybe two, if you count the lakefront that’s attached to it. The Contessa says it’s been in the family for generations, and that’s probably where it’s going to stay.”

She switched the car off and turned to face him. She moved quickly, leaning in to plant a deep, passionate kiss on his mouth. His thoughts of money and real estate disappeared entirely, turned to steam by the heat growing within his belly. He took her in his arms, holding her body tight against his own. In twelve years of marriage, he had never experienced anything as sensuous as Phaedra’s lips moving against his own.

Phaedra broke away from the kiss, studying him with hooded eyes, a sly smile on her lips. “You’re shivering,” she said. “How sweet.”

“I don’t know what to say. This is all so new to me,” he lied.

“1 think we better go inside before you cum outside,” she said with a wink.

“Uh, yeah,” he grunted.

The interior of the house was as impressive as its exterior. The first thing he saw was a grand foyer with an elaborate parquet floor and a grand staircase that split on the second floor into two separate wings. An antique chandelier swayed in the air above their heads like a giant gold and crystal wind chime. The walls of the reception hall were paneled in the finest cherry wood, burnished to a healthy glow. Marble hamadryads sported with marble fauns while a massive grandfather’s clock with a zodiac face counted out the time nearby. Twin mirrors in gilt rococo flames, each the size of a door, made the foyer seem even larger than it already was.

“Man, this must have really been something, back in the day,” John marveled aloud, his voice echoing in the hall.

“You have no idea how grand it was, young man. No idea at all.”

There was a buzzing sound, and an electric wheelchair emerged from the parlor off the foyer. The rider was an old woman dressed in a velvet housecoat the color of oxblood, a woolen throw draped across her lap for extra warmth. Her face was as wrinkled as that of an apple-doll, her swan white hair bound in a long braid and coiled about her fragile shoulders like an albino python. The old woman’s hands were as gnarled and twisted as the claws of a vulture, the nails long and yellowish.

None of this was unusual, given her obvious great age. However, what he was unprepared for was the sight of metal legs that resembled a cross between stilts and pogo sticks emerging from underneath the fringe of the blanket covering the old lady’s lap. Upon noticing his stare, the Contessa hastily rearranged the throw, screening the prostheses from view.

“Contessa! What are you doing up at this hour?” Phaedra said mock-reproachfully, bending to kiss her benefactor’s withered cheek.

“It’s these bones of mine. The older they get, the harder it is to sleep the night through. I did not mean to startle your gentleman friend, my dear.”

“Allow me to introduce you: Contessa, this is … John.”

The Contessa offered her gnarled hand to him. There was a ring with a diamond the size of a man’s thumb glinting on one arthritic finger.

“Enchanted, my dear,” she said, smiling crookedly.

“My pleasure, ma’am.”

“I have no doubt it will be,” the old woman said, a sly grin on her face.

“Uh, right.” He smiled awkwardly and pulled away, unsure of how to react.

“Can I get you anything, Contessa?” Phaedra asked, apparently unfazed by the old woman’s behavior towards her guest.

“No, my dear. Do not mind me,” she said, toggling the joystick so that the chair went back the way it came. “You two have fun,” she said over her shoulder. “That is what youth is for, after all!” Something about what she had just said must have struck the old woman as funny, because she began to laugh. It was a wild sound, like the call of a screech owl.

Phaedra took his hand and led him towards the stairs. He paused to look back towards the parlor, where the Contessa sat chuckling to herself.

“She doesn’t mind you bringing men home?”

“Mind? Why should she mind?” Phaedra snorted. “Remember what I told you about Red Velvet Manor? She used to run the joint.”

A leer spread across his face. “You mean she was a-T

“Yes. But not since they closed the place back in ‘44. She married an expatriate Romanian nobleman who didn’t have anything but a title. But that’s okay, because that’s all she wanted from him.”

“What happened to her, uh, you know … ?”

“Her legs were amputated a few years ago, due to complications from diabetes. That’s when I began working for her.”

“You’re her nurse?”

“She prefers the title ‘companion.’ So do I. I’ve accompanied her on numerous trips around the world. It’s only recently that her condition forced her to return here.”

“Real jet-setter, eh?”

“She knew them all: Rita and Ali, Liz and Dick, Rainier and Grace, Coward, Capote, Warhol…” She turned suddenly to fix him with her gaze. “But that’s enough about the Contessa. We’ve got better things to do. Don’t you agree?”

He tried to answer, but something in the way she looked at him made it hard for him to formulate a coherent sentence, so he contented himself with nodding his head. As she resumed her climb, he lagged behind a few steps, watching her perfectly formed ass. This was all too good to be true. She had to be a pro. He’d been around enough to know the difference between a call girl and a bored housewife on the prowl. Her mentioning the old lady’s former profession had to be a tip-off. No doubt once the credit card clicker finally made its appearance, she’d be charging for her services, but something told him it would be well worth the expense. He’d had his share of paid women before, but none of them had this amount of style or heat.

She paused in front of an elaborately carved wooden door at the end of the second-floor hallway. “This is my room,” she said with a smile. “Come on in.” She opened the door and stepped inside, motioning for him to follow.

He followed, moving cautiously into the darkened room.

“Hey… where did you go?” he said with a nervous laugh. All of a sudden he was aware of the fact that nobody knew he was miles from the city, in an isolated house occupied by strangers whose last names he didn’t know.

“Wait a second-I’ll get the lights.” Phaedra’s voice came out of the darkness, behind and to one side of where he stood.

The lights came on with a sudden flash of brilliance, enough to make him wince. The first thing he noticed was that the walls were the color of spilled blood. The second thing he noticed was the huge mirror mounted on the ceiling, which reflected plush carpeting a shade lighter than the walls. The overhead light fixtures and wall sconces were shaped like gilded cherubs armed with cornucopias. In the middle of the room was a king-size circular bed outfitted with red satin sheets. Heavy crimson velvet curtains covered the windows.

“We can do whatever we like without disturbing anyone,” Phaedra said. She was still behind him, near the light switch. “All the bedrooms are soundproofed.”

He turned to face her, but whatever he was planning to say never found its way past his lips. Phaedra was leaning against the bloodred wall, stark nude except for her shoes. Her dress lay in a pool at her feet, as if it had melted off her body.

“You like?” She smiled.

Unable to find his voice, he nodded vigorously.

She gave a little chuckle and did something with the light switch, and the room abruptly dimmed. “That’s better,” she said, stepping towards him.

He began to remove his own clothes, but his fingers kept fumbling because he couldn’t take his eyes off her. Her skin was as white and flawless as an alabaster statue, her hips shapely and inviting, without a hint of cellulite. Her belly was flat, and her pubic hair carefully trimmed. She smelled of sex and expensive perfume and did not want to discuss children, in-laws, bank balances, mortgage payments, or any of the things that defined the confines of his life. She was young and desirable and available. And the knowledge that he was none of these things made his penis so painfully rigid it vibrated like a tuning fork.

He was breathing fast and his mouth was open as Phaedra approached him. She stood facing him, close enough that he could feel the heat from her body. She looked into his eyes, then down at his penis, jutting forward from underneath the swell of his middle-management paunch.

As Phaedra’s hand wrapped around his erection, his wife’s face shimmered across the back of his eyes like a summer haze, then was gone. Phaedra began to rub his cock up and down with sure, practiced strokes. He gave a choked little cry and placed his hand atop her own, staying the movements.

“That feels too good,” he whispered hoarsely.

“But I want you to feel good,” she purred. “I want you to feel better than you ever have … or ever will again.” She pressed herself tightly against his body, rubbing her breasts against the naked expanse of his chest. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? To make yourself feel good?”

With a sly smile, she gracefully dropped to her knees before him. He gave a groan of approval and tilted his head back, staring up at his reflection in the mirrored ceiling.

As his cock slid into her ready mouth, his vision grew blurry around the edges and a groan of intense pleasure escaped him. Phaedra’s lips glided over the shaft, her tongue exploring every inch of him. He’d never felt anything so incredible in his life, not with his wife or any of the coworkers or call girls he had used over the years. At first her movements were slow, but quickly picked up speed and intensity. He could feel her fingernails dig into his ass cheeks, urging him onward.

That was all the encouragement he needed to surrender to the urge that had been gnawing at his loins all night long. He dug his fingers tight into the hair at the back of Phaedra’s head and began fiercely pumping in and out of her mouth. Even if she had wanted to stop, there was no way he was going to let her. He wanted-no, needed-to cum in her mouth more than anything in his life. He needed it more than a promotion, more than food and shelter. Somehow, everything that was wrong and dull and empty in his life would be set right, if only he could reach orgasm with this woman. And at that moment he was willing to sacrifice everything he had ever held dear-his wife, his children, his career-if it meant he could empty himself between her bloodied lips.

A sweat broke out all over his body as his balls jerked up to the sides of his cock, flooding her mouth with their warm, bitter cream. His head dropped back, his mouth open, as his hips continued to thrust blindly forward. A deep groan escaped him, and then his hands let go of her head as he stepped back on numbed legs, his wilted penis sliding free of her lips. He was light-headed and rubber-kneed, as weak and vulnerable as a freshly foaled colt.

Phaedra was still kneeling before him, wiping spittle and semen from her lower lip with the back of her hand. There was a distance in her eyes he had not seen before, or at least had not allowed himself to notice. Although less than five seconds before they had been as intimate as two humans could possibly be, it was as if she were miles away.

“I-I need to pee,” he stammered.

Phaedra pointed silently in the direction of the bathroom door. He staggered away from her, glad to be free of her thousand-yard stare. She was probably thinking he was a jerk for coming so soon. He meant to apologize, say something about her being so sexy he couldn’t hold back, but he couldn’t work up the energy to bother with it Besides, she didn’t seem so much disappointed as kind of dazed. Maybe those Bloody Marys were finally catching up with her, after all.

The bathroom, in keeping with the rest of die house, was much larger and far grander than anything he’d ever seen in a private residence. The walls were mirrored, casting myriad images of his nakedness into infinity. The floor was ceramic tile, embossed with starfish and crustaceans painted in Mediterranean blue. The oceanic theme was continued by a wash basin fashioned from a gigantic conch shell and solid gold fixtures shaped like medieval dolphins. As impressive as those features were, the piece de resistance was the huge, oval-shaped marble tub that sat atop its own dais in the middle of the room. The bathroom looked like something you might expect to see in an old-fashioned movie star’s home… or a high-class knocking shop.

He climbed up the steps that led to the tub .and gazed down at it. It was easily the width of a child’s swimming pool, and twice as deep. The sides were worn smooth from use and sloped steeply towards the drain, which looked somewhat rusty, set squarely in the bottom of the tub. Still, he couldn’t help but feel that there was something not quite right. Then he realized there was no faucet anywhere in sight. Perplexed, he looked upward, thinking there might be a showerhead in the ceiling.

There was something affixed to the ceiling, but it wasn’t plumbing. As he stood gaping up at the ceiling, he was dimly aware of Phaedra having joined him in the bathroom.

“What the fuck is that doing up there?” he asked, pointing at the old-fashioned block and tackle suspended over the tub.

Phaedra’s answer came in the form of a baseball bat connecting with the side of his head.

The first thing he felt upon regaining consciousness was the congestive pressure of his own blood in his ears. The second thing he felt was pain from his broken jaw. He tried to open his eyes, but his right one was swollen shut. Still, he didn’t need both eyes to know that he was hanging upside down by his heels over the marble tub.

“That didn’t take long.”

He recognized the voice as the Contessa’s. He caught a glimpse of her in one of the mirrors, her wheelchair parked in the open door of the bathroom.

“Thank God for small favors. And I do mean small,” Phaedra sneered. She was seated on the toilet, smoking a cigarette. “I prefer it when they cum in my mouth. I hate it when they stick it in me.” She shivered with revulsion at the very thought.

“Yes, my dear. I understand all too well,” the Contessa said sympathetically. “The penis is such a transgressive organ.”

He tried to open his mouth to demand that they let him go, but the pain from his shattered jaw turned his shout into an agonized moan. The two women glanced up at him as if he were nothing more than a chiming clock.

“He’s awake,” Phaedra said, flicking the cigarette into the conch-shaped wash basin.

“Good,” the Contessa said, tossing aside her lap blanket and levering herself out of the wheelchair. “Let’s get this over with.”

Compared to the rest of her body, the tubular metal and carbon filaments of her prosthetic limbs were frighteningly sturdy. She wavered like a young tree in a stiff wind, then took a step forward, the hydraulic knees and tendons hissing and popping like steam-driven pogo sticks.

Phaedra moved to meet the Contessa, helping the older woman to remove her garment. Her body was so wrinkled it was almost impossible to tell what sex she was, her dried-up dugs hanging flat against her chest like deflated wineskins. With trembling, gnarled fingers, the Contessa loosened her hair, allowing it to spill down upon her shoulders like a fall of snow.

The old woman nodded to the younger one, and Phaedra began methodically to unfasten the elaborate suspension gear-half corset, half truss-that held the Contessa’s artificial legs in place. When the last strap was finished with, die Contessa linked her arms around Phaedra’s neck as her companion lifted her free of the legs. The prostheses, empty of their operator, dropped to the tiled floor with a loud clatter.

Phaedra carried her mistress easily up the steps of the dais and carefully balanced her on its worn lip. Using her arms to propel her, the Contessa scuttled down the side of the tub like a pallid crab.

The man who said his name was John was finally beginning to figure out that whatever plans Phaedra and the Contessa had for him, they were not sexual. At least not as he understood the term. His initial indignation and anger turned to fear, then panic. He tried to call out Phaedra’s name, but die best he could manage was a cry of animal-like pain. Phaedra was standing at the edge of the tub. Even though he was disoriented from the blow and able to see out of only one eye, he was still able to glimpse the knife she held in her hand. His mind was racing so fast it was standing still, unable to gain the traction necessary to escape as Phaedra grabbed his hair and yanked backwards, exposing his Adam’s apple. He didn’t have enough spirituality to find comfort in faith; but he had watched enough TV to delude himself into thinking that someone-Kojak, maybe, or Rockford-would kick open the door, right in the nick of time.

He was still waiting on the cops when Phaedra slit his throat from ear to ear.

The last thing he saw before escaping, mercifully, into unconsciousness, then death, was the sight of his life’s blood jetting forth shot from his severed jugular vein and carotid arteries, like wine from a newly tapped keg. His body involuntarily jerked with the release, much as it had during his orgasm.

The rich red splashed against the smooth marble surface with a thick, wet sound, like rain gushing from a choked gutter. The Contessa thrust herself under the grisly downpour, eagerly massaging it into her thirsty flesh with obscene abandon. The stolen blood did not smear or clot upon her skin, but was absorbed, like rain falling on a sun-baked riverbed. The Contessa’s withered flesh grew firm and taut, smoothing out the creases and wrinkles that crosshatched her face from within. Like ink dropped into a glass of milk, darkness reclaimed her hair. Her eyes shed their clouds to burn as brightly as twin goblets of fine claret held before a fire. She smiled up at her companion, who knelt on the lip of the tub, watching her with the keen attention of a surgeon overseeing an operation.

“You shouldn’t frown so, my dear,” the Contessa said, clucking her tongue. “It leaves wrinkles. Don’t just stand there-help me out”

Phaedra leaned forward and gathered her mistress into her arms, lifting her free of the gore-streaked tub. The Contessa’s head lolled against her shoulder like that of a newborn child. Rejuvenation always left her torpid. The languor would pass after a few minutes, but until then she needed to be guarded and protected.

Phaedra carried the Contessa out of the bathroom and placed her on the circular bed, carefully arranging the red velvet bolster and satin pillows against the headboard.

“The night,” the Contessa said with a breathy sigh. “I want to see the night.”

Phaedra nodded and picked up a remote-control device from atop the bedside table and pointed it at the heavy velvet drapes. She pressed a button and the curtains parted, revealing a picture window that filled the wall. Phaedra assumed that during the day the view was spectacular, but now it was dark as only night on the water can be. The sky was clear, undimmed by the glare from city lights and suburban development, and the millions of stars that filled the night sky were twinned in the inky surface of the lake. The Contessa loved to stare out at the lake for hours on end, although nothing moved except the twinkling of the stars and the gentle motion of the lake’s surface. At least nothing Phaedra’s mortal eyes could see.

“So beautiful,” the Contessa said, slurring the words slightly. She patted the coverlet beside her with her hand. “Come. Sit by me, child.”

Phaedra sat beside her, her naked body pressed close to the Contessa’s own. The older woman looked at her for a long moment, then motioned to Phaedra’s hair.

“Take that dreadful thing off.”

Phaedra nodded and tossed the blonde wig to the foot of the bed.

The Contessa stroked Phaedra’s close-cropped, mousy hair as she would the fur of a cat. “That’s better,” she said. “You must be tired after all that. Come, child, rest your head.”

With a grateful sigh, Phaedra pillowed her cheek against the smooth curve of her mistress’s right stump. The Contessa’s hands, no longer twisted by arthritis, continued to play with her hair.

“Contessa-?” Phaedra’s voice was high and sweet, like that of a little girl.

“Yes, my precious?”

‘Tell me a story.”

“Very well, my dear. Which story would you like to hear? How about the one about the Secret Princess?”

“No. The other one.”

The Contessa smiled and nodded her understanding. “Ah, yes. That one. Very well. As you wish, my pet. Now, how does that one begin … ?”

“ ‘Once upon a time, long, long ago, there was a beautiful young girl named Elizabeth’…” Phaedra prompted.

“Of course!” The Contessa chuckled. “Now I remember! Once upon a time, long, long ago, there was a beautiful young girl named Elizabeth, who lived in a land far, far away. This faraway land was very beautiful, and because it was so beautiful, everyone wanted to own it. So there was constant war for control of the land. Life was very hard for the peasants and commoners who lived in the battle-torn land, as there was little money and rarely enough food.

“But since Elizabeth’s family was very rich and very powerful, none of this concerned her. As she grew to womanhood, she quickly learned that because one cousin was the Prime Minister, another the ruler of an allied kingdom, and her great-uncle a cardinal in the Church, there was nothing she could do …hat would not be overlooked or forgiven.

“When Elizabeth was but fifteen, her family married her to the Black Count, eleven years her senior. He was not as politically important, but he had a great deal of money and possessed considerable property, and the marriage was deemed a good one in the eyes of her family. So Elizabeth was sent away against her wishes to live in her new husband’s castle in the farthest reaches of the land.

“Things did not go well from the very start. Although the Black Count was not unhandsome, he was always going off to some battle or another, leaving his young bride .done with only his mother and castle retainers for company. The wicked mother-in-law was a horrible woman with a shrewish tongue and a narrow mind. All she did day in and day out was pray to God and berate poor Elizabeth for not being perfect. There was nothing Elizabeth could do that the wicked mother-in-law approved of. If Elizabeth had the servants put more logs on the fire, the wicked mother-in-law accused her of being a spendthrift; if Elizabeth did not order the servants to light a fire, the wicked mother-in-law accused her of stinginess. But what the wicked mother-in-law complained the most about was how Elizabeth had failed to provide an heir. She was most eager to have the marriage annulled, so that the Black Count might take a more ‘suitable’ wife, one who could give him children-and plenty of them. It did not matter that her son was rarely home long enough to change his clothes, much less impregnate his wife. The fault, it was clear, lay with Elizabeth.

“As much as she resented being married, Elizabeth knew that to be sent back to her family as a failed wife would be her undoing. Determined to secure her place as lady of the castle, she began to scheme how to bear a child. When folk remedies and old wives’ tales proved useless, she took as lovers men similar in build and appearance to the Black Count, but nothing came of those liaisons.

“Despairing, she begged her old nurse to help her. The loyal servant introduced her mistress to a witch, who claimed she could use her dark arts to place a child within Elizabeth’s womb. So, during the dark of the moon, the witch smuggled Elizabeth out of the castle and into the surrounding forest, to a magic grove used by her kind since the days of Rome. The witch had Elizabeth strip naked and anoint her body with an unguent made from the fat of unbaptized babies. Then she poured the blood of a black goat upon the ground and called upon her master-

“ ‘With this blood I summon thee, He Who Makes Shadows. With my will I bring thee forth, He Who Makes War. With these words I beseech thee, He Who Makes Dreams. Come forth from your world into this!’ ”

“A cold wind blew down from the mountaintops, and the shadows in the darkness shaped themselves into the semblance of a tall, dark man with the legs of a goat, eyes of flame, and six fingers on each hand.

“ ‘Who calls me forth upon this plane?’ asked the dark man, his voice echoing like thunder through the mountains. ‘Who would summon He Who Makes?’ ”

“The very sound of the demon lord’s voice was enough to make Elizabeth’s breath freeze in her mouth. But although she was frightened, she was even more fearful of being sent back to her people in disgrace.

“ ‘I would make a child, lord.’ ”

“He Who Makes looked at Elizabeth’s naked belly as if it was glass and shook his head. ‘Daughter of Eve, no seed sown by a human husband can ever take root in such rocky soil as yours.’

“ “Then I have no choice but to take an inhuman husband, lord,’ she replied.

“The flames within the demon lord’s eyes leapt like burning bonfires as Elizabeth knelt before him. With a fearsome roar, he took her under the moonless sky like a beast of the field, hard as horn and cold as ice. Elizabeth cried out as her demon lover loosed his seed, which burned like that of oil of peppermint poured upon an open wound. Once he was finished with her, the dark man returned to the shadows, leaving Elizabeth collapsed on the ground, clutching her belly as if she had been stabbed in the vitals. The witch quickly dressed her mistress and hurried her back to the castle before any of the courtiers noticed she was gone. For several days Elizabeth lay abed, wracked by fever; when she awoke from her delirium, she could feel the seed He Who Makes had planted within her womb.

“That night she crept into her husband’s bedchamber and made herself available to him, but as the Black Count placed his member inside her, he cried out in alarm, for she was cold as ice. He Who Makes had placed his mark upon her. In her own way, Elizabeth realized she was bound to her demon lover in unholy chastity as surely as the Brides of Christ are wed to their resurrected lord.

“If the Black Count suspected the child she claimed he had placed within her belonged to any but himself, he showed no sign. The impending arrival of an heir appeased, somewhat, the wicked mother-in-law, and her scoldings grew less frequent.

“Elizabeth’s belly grew, and she took to lying in, attended by her loyal nurse, the witch, and her majordomo. Then, seven months into her maternity, she fell into heavy labor, her body struggling to bring forth the thing within her. What emerged from Elizabeth’s womb resembled something dragged from the bowels of the sea, for it was without bones or limbs, its skin the color and consistency of fresh pitch broken only by patches of hair, a lipless mouth ringed with tiny, razorlike teeth, and a single red eye. The witch screeched and wailed and called it a name unspoken in a thousand years. Then as the nurse and the majordomo whispered whether or not to slay the wretched thing as it lay shivering on the counterpane, it gave a solitary cry and surrendered its breath.

“Elizabeth gnashed her teeth and cursed herself for not having been more specific when she bargained with the demon. She had asked for a child, but had not said she wanted a human one or that it should be born alive and healthy. She was ruined for childbirth, her womb rendered as icy as a tombstone in the dead of winter.

“The thing that she delivered forth was not given a name, nor was it buried in holy ground. The witch placed it in a bag and left with it hidden under her cloak, no doubt with intentions of rendering it for its unbaptized fat To allay suspicions, Elizabeth’s loyal nurse bought the corpse of a newborn from a midwife, who specialized in the disposal of unwanted children, and presented it to the Black Count as his stillborn son and heir. The Black Count, more interested in warfare than posterity, seemed slightly grieved by the loss, while the wicked mother-in-law was visibly relieved she no longer had to be civil to Eh’zabeth. With the entombment of the infant impostor in the family vault, the subject of annulment was no longer whispered in the castle.

“As the wicked mother-in-law grew older and more and more feeble, Elizabeth’s power within the castle strengthened. The years became decades, and the wicked mother-in-law’s sharp tongue became blunted for fear of Elizabeth and her allies within the court. She kept more .and more to her chambers, until she was .little more than a memory. Then, one day, a courtier came bearing news of the Black Count’s death on the field of battle.

“Upon her husband’s passing, Elizabeth assumed the title and power of Countess and lost no time in banishing the wicked mother-in-law to a small hunting lodge atop a distant mountain; there the elderly woman was forced to chop her own firewood, draw her own water, and subsist on nothing but black bread and stone soup. She quickly joined her son in the grave. For the first time in her life, Elizabeth was free from her husband and the control his family had exerted over her.

“None could compare to her when it came to her riches, station, and comeliness. But of these three attributes, it was her beauty that Elizabeth treasured most. It pleased her that men would be moved by the sight of her to unthinking lust. For, as she had long ago learned, men possessed by lust have their uses in the political arena.

“Since she no longer enjoyed the embrace of men, she developed a taste for the pleasure of others, and orchestrated orgies for her amusement. As the years passed, they became more and more extreme in nature, involving erotic circuses complete with acrobats, trained animal acts, and freak shows. Black Sabbaths were held within the castle’s chapel, where highborn guests ritually desecrated the altar and baptismal font in honor of He Who Makes. There were whispers of the goings-on amongst the villagers, but the rumors rarely made it to the royal court. And even if they did, the Countess was a blood cousin of the vice chamberlain. Who would dare to lift a hand against her?

“And so it went for several years. But as roses fade and silver tarnishes, as the sun will one day lose its fire, Elizabeth’s great beauty finally began to dim. Her breasts were no longer firm like apples, but more like ripened plums. Her buttocks and belly were starting to sag; silver (.breads were woven throughout her dark hair, and her hands resembled more the claws of a crow than the wings of doves. For a woman such as Elizabeth, the effects of aging were no more to be suffered than the stare of an insolent peasant. She instructed the witch to find a rejuvenation spell or she would put her to death.

“The witch pored through her collection of spells and incantations until she came upon a ritual described within the pages of an ancient tome known as The Aegrisomnia. It promised the restoration of youth and vigor and, eventually, the gift of immortality, but only by bathing in the freshly shed blood of young virgins.

“Elizabeth decided that if Cleopatra became one of the great beauties of the civilized world with the help of asses’ milk, then she would have her bath of blood. The majordomo, in collaboration with the witch, butchered one of the servant girls and bled her into a large cauldron, in which Elizabeth steeped herself. From that day on, the ravages of age held no sway over her.

“For ten years, Elizabeth’s loyal inner circle scoured the countryside in search of suitable young girls, free of sin and untainted by illness, which, in those days, was not as easy as it sounds. Numerous peasant girls, born into ignorance and poverty, were offered positions as chambermaids and scullery servants in the comparative grandeur of the castle. But the moment the new ‘serving girls’ arrived, they were drugged, bound, and butchered like sheep.

“Over the next ten years, more than forty young girls were fed to Elizabeth’s beauty, and it would have continued for another decade, possibly a third, if a fatal case of mistaken identity had not been made. When the young daughter of the archduke arrived at the castle for an unannounced visit after a particularly long and arduous journey, she was mistaken for the most recent recruit and summarily drugged and bled out before anyone realized who she was.

“The archduke became concerned when his favorite daughter did not return. He wrote several letters to Elizabeth, asking what had become of his child. At first Elizabeth assured the archduke that the girl was fine and had merely decided to extend her stay. But when he still did not hear from his daughter, the archduke became more insistent. Elizabeth then claimed that the young girl had contracted a fever and could not be moved. This news upset the archduke greatly, and he promptly sent a messenger to the castle to inform Elizabeth that he would be leaving his palace to personally attend his ailing daughter.

“Halfway to the castle, the archduke was met by one of Elizabeth’s retainers, who said his daughter had died of the plague and the castle was under quarantine. The Countess had been forced to burn the body of the archduke’s daughter, for fear of contamination.

“This last piece of news was more than the archduke could bear. He had heard rumors of the goings-on at the castle but had not given them much credence. He knew his child was dead, but he suspected her end had come by mortal hands. He petitioned the king for an investigation. Elizabeth’s cousin, the vice chamberlain, tried to block the request, but since the king was the cousin of the archduke, he was unable to stop it

“A division of the king’s army, led by the archduke and accompanied by church inquisitors, stormed the castle. They found the archduke’s dear, departed daughter moldering in the dungeon, her highborn corpse alongside the daughters of swineherds and hod carriers.

“The lowborn accomplices who had served Elizabeth so loyally were put to the question, and quickly turned evidence against their mistress. For collaborating with the State, the witnesses privy to the secret behind Elizabeth’s unique beauty treatments were rewarded by having their fingernails pulled out with pliers, their kneecaps broken, and then were hanged and dismembered in the public square. The witch, for the additional crime of blasphemy, was broken on the wheel and then burned at the stake.

“Because of her high station, Elizabeth was not put to death. Indeed, she was not even placed on trial. Instead, it was decreed that she would spend the rest of her natural life under house arrest, and to make sure that her sentence would be as short as possible, her jailer was the archduke.

“The day after sentence was passed, the archduke arrived at her castle and ordered all the fixtures removed. The beds, chairs, tables, tapestries, even the chamber pots, were taken from the castle and distributed amongst the families of those who had lost their daughters to the bloodbath. Once the interior of the castle was bleak and bare, the archduke ordered what few servants remained to leave. By the end of the second day, all that was left inside was a pallet of dirty straw, a crooked footstool, a rough-hewn table… and Elizabeth.

“The archduke then summoned his master mason and ordered him to brick up every door and window … save for one. The sole egress was a small window in Elizabeth’s bedchamber, accessible only via a long ladder. Through this narrow portal Elizabeth’s jailers pushed her daily meal of black bread and stone soup.

“Elizabeth’s isolation from the world was total, as she was forbidden pen and paper to pass her days, candles or fire to illuminate the darkness or warm herself, and her keepers were forbidden to speak even one word to her, under pain of death.

“She spent four years sealed away from the light of day. Four years spent shitting in the ballroom fireplace. Four years spent prowling the dark for rats and mice to supplement her diet. Four years spent licking condensation off the walls to quench her thirst. Four years freezing in winter and sweltering in summer. Her only clothes were those upon her back the day the master mason sealed her away. Her only blanket was a tattered piece of tapestry overlooked by the archduke’s men. Finally, after years of such treatment, she collapsed in her bedchamber, too weak to rise. As she lay dying on the hard, chill floor, the shadows in the comer of the room took a form familiar to her and knelt beside her, its eyes flickering in the eternal gloom.

“ “Thou breathest thy last, fair Elizabeth, but despair not. In life thou embraced monstrosity and, in doing so, secured for thyself Unlife never-ending. In three days’ time, thou shall walk the earth once more, as one Made in mine own image.’

“They found the body of Elizabeth, reduced to little more than a skeleton, covered in filth and open sores. Although the archduke would have gladly thrown her corpse on the dung heap for dogs to tear apart, he had no desire to offend her powerful relatives, so he had her body placed in the family tomb without the benefit of clergy, alongside her long-dead husband.

“And so ended the story, as far as most people were concerned. But the night following her entombment, Elizabeth rose from her resting place and walked out into the darkness, never to return to her native land. For He Who Makes was as good as his word; although dead, she was now one of the Unliving, who walk by night and feed upon the blood of mortals. But Elizabeth was different in many ways from common enkidu, those creatures whom humans know as vampires. She did not have fangs to bite her victims, but instead absorbed their blood directly through her skin. And now that she was Undead, she no longer had to worry about the blood being that of a male or a female, virgin or sinner.

“So Elizabeth wandered the world, eager to quench her thirst and continue the existence she had once known. She soon learned that the best cover for her operations was that of the brothel. Men, as a rule, were far easier to entice to their deaths… and much less likely to be missed than virginal young maidens.

“Over the centuries she went from country to country, city to city, establishing a series of bordellos notorious for their willingness to cater to the more perverse-and wealthy-patrons. Rome, Vienna, Paris, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Venice, Moscow, and London: she knew them all, and they knew her, under a dozen different names. But always the same title: Countess.

“Empires rose and fell. Religions were founded and destroyed. The ancestral line of which she was once so proud grew anemic and fell into decline. To her eyes, human society was like a castle made of sand, constantly being washed away and rebuilt. The one thing that remained unchanged was her beauty … and the blood that fed it.

“And so things would have remained until the world’s end, except for the Blue Monster.

“The Blue Monster was a fearsome creature that hated all things inhuman. It had mirrors for eyes, a leathery black skin, and a single, deadly silver tooth, which it plunged into the hearts of its hapless victims. It scoured the world in search of vampires and other nonhumans, stalking its prey without mercy.

“One day, not too long ago, while returning from an exclusive sex club in Monte Carlo, Elizabeth was accosted by the Blue Monster, who attacked without warning or provocation, slicing her with its horrible silver tooth. It took all of Elizabeth’s strength to escape the dreadful beast.

“Although she had avoided true death at the hands of her enemy, the Blue Monster’s silver tooth had done its damage, turning her legs gangrenous. To keep the rot from spreading, Elizabeth had no other choice but to have her legs removed. Although the surgery was successful, her existence was forever changed. As all vampires know, wounds dealt by silver weapons never truly heal, and limbs lost to silver never regenerate.

“For the first time in centuries, Elizabeth was unable to feed her beauty, and without the blood of her admirers, the full weight of her years began to bear down on her brittle bones. Elizabeth needed a companion to help restore her youth and beauty; a companion who would do her bidding without question or qualm; a companion who would deceive, seduce and kill for her. Most of all, she needed a companion who would protect her from the Blue Monster.

“Elizabeth looked in penthouses and boxcars, prep schools and prisons for such a companion. Then, one night, while at an interstate travel plaza, she noticed a young girl dressed in a tank top and cut-off jeans going from rig to rig, soliciting the truckers for sex. She watched as the girl climbed into one of the cabs, then exited ten minutes later, her hands stained with blood and clutching a large roll of paper currency. It was then that Elizabeth knew she had found her companion.

“Elizabeth took the girl away from the truck stops and rest areas that had been her world and gave her nice clothes, money, expensive cars, and took her traveling around the globe. And in exchange, all the companion-who was, in reality, a Secret Princess-had to do was keep Elizabeth’s beauty fed with fresh blood. Which proved very, very easy. The End.”

“But you didn’t say if Elizabeth and the Secret Princess lived happily ever after,” Phaedra said.

“How remiss of me! And Elizabeth and the Secret Princess lived happily ever after forever and ever. The End.”

“I like it when you do the voices,” Phaedra said, her voice drowsy.

The next John whose name wasn’t John was a Japanese business executive with an Osaka electronics concern. She picked him up at a gentleman’s club while wearing the red wig and driving the Lamborghini. He had insisted on vaginal intercourse but hadn’t lasted three minutes. Not that it mattered. In the end he met the same fate as all the other nameless Johns she had slaughtered in the service of the Contessa’s beauty.

Still, she was beginning to worry. They had been in one place far too long. And the cycles between baths were becoming disturbingly short. When Phaedra first began working for her, the Contessa had required only one bath a week. Now it was two, sometimes three. The local police would eventually tie the various disappearances together, despite Phaedra’s care in changing her appearance and making sure she didn’t trawl in a discernible pattern.

Even if the cops were slow on the uptake, there was no guarantee the papers wouldn’t smell a story and start writing about the sudden spate of missing midlevel executives. Neither the cops nor reporters really concerned Phaedra overmuch. She was used to dodging both. But what she was afraid of was the story getting picked up by the wire services. That meant the Blue Monster would be headed their way.

Phaedra felt much safer in Europe than the States. Part of that was personal. After all, nothing bad had ever happened to her on the Continent. She had repeatedly begged her mistress to leave the country, but the Contessa remained adamant about staying put. Phaedra feared that the Contessa’s frequent aging cycles had somehow affected her mind. Sometimes she seemed distant and disjointed, as if centuries of memory were playing inside her head at the same time. On occasion she called Phaedra by different names and spoke in languages she didn’t recognize.

There were other changes, too. The torpor that followed her rejuvenation now lasted hours. Now all die Contessa seemed interested in doing was sitting on her bed and staring out at the night, watching the moon’s reflection on the lake’s liquid surface. The only thing that seemed to interest the Contessa, besides watching the night, were the fairy tales.

Phaedra liked lying with her head in her mistress’s truncated lap while the Contessa absently stroked her hair and told her bedtime stories. It was something her mother had never done for her as a child. Her stepfather used to come into her room and put her head in his lap, but that was different.

If there was one thing Phaedra had learned in her short life, it was that love was not to be trusted. Need was better than love, safer than want, more reliable than lust. The Contessa needed her more than anyone else ever had. She needed her like Phaedra needed to eat and breathe. That, more than the money, was what kept her bound to the old woman.

The Contessa had done more for her than any other person on the face of the Earth, including her mother. All that bitch ever did was give birth to her. The Contessa, on the other hand, had lifted her up from the gutter, taught her how to act and dress and talk in such a way as to attract a more affluent John. It was the Contessa who exposed her to the world beyond the grim, gray confines of truck-stop plazas, trailer parks, and cheap motels.

It was the Contessa who had taught her how best to butcher a human being and disassemble him with a hacksaw and a cleaver; it was she who had showed Phaedra how to dispose of a body without attracting attention. When they first met, Phaedra was a callow young girl with a lot of anger and a straight razor; the Contessa had turned her into a sophisticated femme fatale and a world-class serial killer.

The Contessa had given her a life where before there had been nothing but day-to-day existence. Phaedra owed it to her mistress to protect her and make her safe from her enemies. But there was only so much she could do for her lady. Why the Contessa chose to come back to this place, she was not certain.

Phaedra knew the Contessa had lived in Red Velvet Manor far longer than any other place in the nearly four hundred years of her existence. Then again, perhaps the old woman’s reasons for returning were more practical than sentimental. After all, Red Velvet Manor was already outfitted for her special needs.

It was Phaedra’s job to protect her mistress, and that meant making sure their camouflage within the community remained intact. The best way to do that was to maintain a low profile, make sure the curious stayed at arm’s length, and keep moving. The longer they stayed at Red Velvet Manor, the more likely it was that the Blue Monster would sniff them out. Phaedra had never seen the Blue Monster, but she did not doubt it existed. The Contessa’s legs were proof enough of that.

In the years spent making sure the Contessa was one step ahead of the Blue Monster, Phaedra had come to realize it was as smart as it was tenacious. While Red Velvet Manor was isolated, it did have a historical connection to the Contessa; one that was easily accessible to anyone with access to the Internet and knowledge of the Contessa’s various pseudonyms.

If her lady wished to remain at Red Velvet Manor, then they would stay put But Phaedra could not shake the sensation that things were about to go bad. It was the same feeling she used to get when she stood on the concrete block that served as the trailer’s front stoop, sniffing the summer wind while cicadas sang in the trees. On the surface everything seemed safe, but there was always an edge of potential disaster in the rising wind.

There was a storm coming. But would it be just another summer squall… or a twister? Do you run for cover or stand your ground? Do you batten down the hatches or flee for your life? There was no way of knowing, really, until the storm was upon you. And by then it was too late to do anything but ride it out

“Have you seen this woman?”

“Nope,” the bartender grunted, barely glancing in the direction of the photo on the top of the bar.

A fresh twenty suddenly appeared atop the photograph.

“You sure about that?”

The bartender stopped cleaning the highball glass and glanced up, for the first time, at the woman standing opposite him. His eyebrow went up even higher. Hotel Orso was a four-star establishment, catering to wealthy business executives. It rarely saw young women tricked out in leather motorcycle jackets, mirrored sunglasses, and tattered Black Flag T-shirts, even when rock stars were staying in the hotel.

The bartender palmed the twenty and picked up the photo, knitting his brows as he frowned. It was a candid surveillance shot, taken with a telephoto lens.

“Which one you mean? The old lady?”

“No. The blonde pushing the wheelchair,” the woman in the leather jacket said, tapping the picture.

The bartender shook his head and tossed the photograph back onto the counter. “Naw. Can’t say I recognize her. Sorry.”

“How about this one?” She flipped a second photo out of a small deck held in a fan like playing cards.

The other photograph was in better focus, although taken under the same conditions. It was of a sexy brunette in a red cocktail dress being helped into a sports car by a slightly balding middle-aged man in evening clothes. The bartender’s eyes narrowed.

“Now this one looks familiar. She wears her hair different, but I’m pretty sure it’s her. She comes in from time to time. Checks out the bar. Working girl, from what I’ve seen of her.”

“She ever talk to you?”

The bartender shook his head. “Just to order drinks. Virgin Marys. Keeps to herself, unless she hooks a John.”

“When’s the last time you saw her?”

“Couple of weeks ago, I guess. She left with some suit.” He tilted his head to one side. “Are you a cop, lady?”

“Do I look like a cop?”

“Hell, no!” the bartender snorted. “The reason I asked, see … that suit she walked out of here with turned up missing a couple of days later.”

“You don’t say?”

“Cops were all over this place, asking questions. I guess he was some kind of business bigwig,” he said, turning to slide one of the long stems into its overhead rack. “The cops seemed to think the bastard high-tailed it to Rio with company funds. The way I see it-” The bartender turned back to face his questioner, only to find himself addressing empty space. He shrugged and resumed polishing his highball glass. Fucking tourists.

Sonja strode purposefully across the Hotel Orso’s lobby, oblivious to the stares from the staff and guests. She had more important things on her mind. The blood witch was in the area.

There was no doubt the Contessa’s renfield was out and about, doing her mistress’s work.

She had spent the better part of two years tracking down the old bitch. She had come close to killing her back in Vienna, only to have her escape. Now it was up to her to track down the Contessa and finish her off, much like a master hunter would a wounded deer.

Vampires as ancient as the Contessa were never easy prey. You didn’t get to be hundreds of years old without honing to a fine art the ability to go to ground. If one identity got too hot for them, they would switch to another as easily as they would change their socks. This made her quarry especially difficult to keep track of. However, since ancients rarely had to worry about being recognized from one generation to another, they tended to use the same identities over and over again. Another thing in her favor was the inherent difficulty ancients seemed to have in understanding the importance of technology, which to her meant commissioning a computer database, based on her own design, that could access and cross-reference real estate records, land titles, newspaper reports, census information, birth and death certificates, and maps, scanning them for known identities and pseudonyms of the so-called Ruling Class. As an afterthought, she had an anagram generator incorporated into the system, just in case someone decided to get cute.

A search on the Contessa pulled up newspaper reports dating from the Depression of a notorious “high-class house of ill repute” called Red Velvet Manor. Its madam was one Eliza Bayroth, who was rumored to have catered to the more outr6 tastes of captains of industry, Supreme Court justices, and the occasional President. After the start of World War n, rumors began to circulate of occult rituals, which may or may not have been a cover for Fifth Columnist activities.

The brothel shut down shortly after a newspaperman famous for underworld reportage announced his intention of publishing an expos6 of Red Velvet Manor. The reporter disappeared off the face of the Earth not long after that. A year later, a badly decomposed body, believed to be that of the missing journalist, was found in a nearby landfill. It was assumed to be a gangland killing. By the time the body was uncovered, Madame Bayroth had married a dissolute Romanian nobleman and set sail for the Continent, where, from there on in, she was known simply as the Contessa.

This information dovetailed into what she herself had uncovered from her European sources and from microfiched issues of Le Figaro, Paris-Match, and Der Spiegel. Studied in its totality, the data answered several nagging questions Sonja had concerning her quarry.

She had been hunting vampires for almost thirty years. Her knowledge of their strengths and weaknesses, their abilities and limits, did not come from reading books or watching movies, but from hands-on experience. But, for all her familiarity with the world and ways of the Undead, she had been baffled by the Contessa. For one, she did not seem to possess the telltale fangs, nor did she surround herself with lesser vampires of her own Making. And, most important, she had survived an attack with a silver weapon, albeit as a double amputee.

Sonja realized now that she had made a grave mistake in classifying the Contessa as a garden-variety vampire. From what she had since learned from various sources and her own research, the Contessa was not a true vampire, but a strega- those who transform themselves into Undead through the use of black magic. Such creatures were rare, but those that existed were crafty and possessed different strengths and weaknesses than “typical” vampires. While the Contessa’s means of feeding on her victims did not spread the taint, that didn’t make her any less dangerous. Like all vampires, she was a corrupting force on any human who fell into her sphere of influence. To allow such a monster to continue to exist was anathema to Sonja.

After all, it was one such monster that had attacked Sonja, over thirty years ago… and made her one of them.

Phaedra was wearing the short red wig and the black silk sheath that night. It hadn’t taken her very long to reel in the next John whose name wasn’t John. As they headed for the Boxter, he began to drag his heels. She turned to look at him.

“Is there something wrong, sugar?”

“Look, lady …” he said, his face coloring. “I thought I could go through with this.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, genuinely baffled.

“It’s not you!” he said with a nervous laugh. “God knows, you’re one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever met! It’s just that-well, I keep thinking of my wife and the kids. And, well, I’m sure you’re a great person and all that… but I just can’t go through with this. I’m sorry if I led you on back at the bar.”

Phaedra blinked and shifted around uncomfortably, uncertain of what she should do. She had never had a John throw the hook before. The one or two who had gotten away in the past had done so simply because someone who would have been able to give a description to the local authorities or remember a license plate number had walked up at an inopportune moment. But nothing like actual rejection had ever happened to her before. It had never once crossed her mind that a man might be capable of passing up sex. In her experience, given the chance, men fucked anything that was willing, and much that was not.

“I feel like I haven’t been honest with you or myself. My name isn’t John, it’s Frank. Frank Hensley,” he said, an abashed look on his face. “Believe me, I would love to spend the night with you-“

“Get in the car,” she said.

“Beg pardon?” Frank blinked, uncertain he’d heard her correctly.

“Get in the car, damn you!”

Frank’s eyes widened at the sight of the gun aimed at his midsection. “Whoa, lady!” he said, automatically raising his hands. “Don’t you think you’re overreacting?”

Bartenders, like cops, develop a sixth sense for trouble. And the chick in the leather jacket was definitely that. Over the years he learned never to trust anyone who wore sunglasses after the sun went down, since it usually meant they were strung out on something. Still, potential trouble or not, it was his job to serve her, just as he would any other customer who happened to stroll into the Embers Lounge.

“What’ll it be, ma’am?”

“I don’t want a drink, just information. Have you seen this woman?” she asked, pushing a snapshot wrapped in a twenty towards him.

“What’s the deal?” he said, eyeing her suspiciously. “She owe you money or something?”

The woman in the sunglasses smiled crookedly without showing her teeth. “Far from it. In fact, I’m the one who owes her. I’m just trying to track her down so I can pay her back.”

The bartender hesitated for a moment, but the twenty was too tempting to ignore. He picked up the photo and frowned at it for a moment.

“Yeah, I recognize her.”

The stranger in the leather jacket and mirrored shades grew attentive. “When was the last time you saw her?”

“Just a few minutes ago.” He nodded in the direction of the side door. “She just left with some suit.”

To his surprise, the stranger bared her teeth in a snarl and headed in the direction he’d indicated as if the joint had suddenly caught fire. The bartender wasn’t certain, but he could have sworn he’d glimpsed fangs. He shook his head, doing his best to forget what he had just seen as he pocketed the twenty. Yeah, she was trouble all right. But not his, thank God.

“Shut up and get in the car!” Phaedra said, jerking open the passenger door.

Frank stared at the gun, then at Phaedra. What he saw in her eyes was enough to turn him on his heel and send him sprinting back in the direction of the motel. He managed to get halfway across the parking lot before she dropped him with a single shot to the right leg. Frank lay on the asphalt, writhing in pain as he clutched what remained of his kneecap.

Phaedra hurried to claim her prize, removing the handcuffs sfie kept hidden in her purse as she crossed the lot with brisk, purposeful strides. Frank cringed in fear, lifting his bloodied hands to shield his face, as she loomed over him.

‘Take my wallet, if that’s what you want! I don’t care! Just don’t kill me! Please! I’ve got a wife and kids!”

Phaedra cursed under her breath and quickly scanned the parking lot for witnesses. The bastard was making too much noise. She would be better off popping him here and now and fleeing the scene, then starting from scratch in one of the gentlemen’s clubs across town. Phaedra returned the handcuffs to her purse and raised the gun. Frank began to alternately pray and sob out loud.

Before Phaedra could squeeze the trigger, the side door of the bar banged open, causing her to swing the gun in the direction of the noise. She saw a strange woman standing framed in the doorway, dressed in a black leather motorcycle jacket and wearing a pair of mirrored sunglasses, even though it was the dead of night.

The stranger did not seem surprised by the sight of a man wallowing on the asphalt, nor was she frightened by the gun pointed in her direction. Instead of turning and running back into the building, the stranger let the door close behind her and gave her right wrist a small, sharp snap and a silver blade in the shape of a frozen flame sprouted from her hand as if by magic. Phaedra gasped in recognition, even though she had never seen the woman before.

The Blue Monster fixed Phaedra with its horrible mirrored eyes and moved towards her with determined, measured steps, its hideous silver fang reflecting the glow from the streetlights.

Phaedra squeezed the trigger of the gun, firing on her approaching enemy. The Blue Monster moved with the fluid grace of underwater ballet, twisting its upper torso one-quarter turn to allow the bullet to pass by. The second bullet, however, caught it in the upper shoulder, knocking it to the ground.

Phaedra looked down at Frank, still cowering at her feet, then at the Blue Monster, which was already painfully picking itself up off the ground, and, with a scream of angry frustration, fled to the waiting Boxter, leaving six feet of smoking rubber in her wake.

Sonja sat up and grimaced at the pain radiating from her shoulder. She bit her lower lip, her fangs inadvertently drawing more blood. It felt like the renfield had broken her damn collarbone. Then again, she’d taken slugs to the heart and lungs without much to show for it except some scars. She grunted as she got to her feet, pushing the throbbing in her shoulder to the back of her mind.

She walked over to where the renfield’s intended victim lay huddled on the asphalt He was alive, although his face was starting to go gray from shock. He flinched as she leaned over him.

“Don’t shoot me,” he whispered.

“I’m not her.”

The side door opened, and the bartender stuck his head outside. “What the fuck’s going on out here?”

‘This man’s been shot! Call 911!” she shouted in reply.

The bartender nodded and disappeared back inside the Embers.

Frank shook his head, a look of baffled pain on his face. “Why’d she shoot me?”

“You must have broken the script. You did something she was unprepared for.”

Frank laughed without humor. “All I said was that I didn’t want to go home with her.” His laughter turned into a moan, causing him to close his eyes. When he opened them again, the woman with the mirrored sunglasses was gone. Which suited him just fine. There was something about the way she stared at the blood from his wound that scared him even more than being shot again.

The sound of the front door slamming shut reverberated throughout the house. Startled, the Contessa looked around at the red velvet wallpaper and the gilded rococo statuary that surrounded her on all sides, a look of bafflement on her face. This wasn’t Vienna. And she was reasonably sure it wasn’t Budapest. But if she was in neither of these places, then where was she? And, more important, when was she?

Her confused gaze fell to her lap, and she caught sight of the grotesque contraptions that served as her legs. Ah, yes. The New World. The city that sprawled along the shores of the great inland freshwater sea. She stared at a heavily brocaded mahogany love seat and saw a long-dead Chief Justice being fellaled by a twelve-year-old boy. She shook her head, dislodging the ghost memory. It was so easy to forget where and when she was these days.

If it wasn’t for Magda … no, her name was Gretchen. Wait, that wasn’t right, either. Phaedra? Yes. That was it. If it weren’t for her faithful companion, Phaedra, she would become lost within the world inside herself, wandering the shadow-haunted palaces and ballrooms of centuries past.

“Contessa!”

Phaedra burst into the parlor, her mascara smeared and hair in disarray. That more than the look of fear on her companion’s face shocked the Contessa back into her senses.

“What is it, child? You look a fright.”

Phaedra grabbed the handles of the old woman’s wheelchair and began quickly pushing her towards the converted dumbwaiter. “We have to leave! We have to leave right now/”

“Phaedra, what’s going on?” The Contessa twisted around in her seat so she could face her companion. “Answer me, young lady!”

Phaedra fumbled with the door to the elevator, her eyes blinded by tears. “I’m so sorry, mistress. I’m so, so sorry.”

“Sorry? For what?’

Phaedra’s shoulders shook as she began to sob. “I’ve failed you, mistress. Please forgive me.”

“Speak plainly, Phaedra! You’re starting to annoy me!”

“The Blue Monster is here.”

The Contessa gasped involuntarily as phantom pain shot through the stumps of her legs. She put a trembling hand to her mouth, her eyes wide with fear.

“Are you certain it’s her?”

“As sure as sunlight burns,” Phaedra replied. “Please, Contessa, we’ve got to leave right now! Take the elevator to the ground floor and wait for me by the boathouse. I’ll go upstairs and get the strongbox and passports, then I’ll bring the car around. I’ll have to put you in the trunk-just in case sunrise catches us before I can reach a safe haven.”

“But I don’t want to ride in the trunk,” the Contessa said petulantly.

“Please, mistress, not now! Just do as I ask!” Phaedra pushed the wheelchair into the elevator and pulled the doors shut behind it. “I’ll be down to get you in a couple of minutes. I promise.”

The Contessa sat in the darkened elevator, staring at the control panel for a long moment, before punching the button.

Phaedra grabbed the top drawer of the bedroom dresser and yanked it out, sending crotchless panties and Wonder Bras flying in every direction. She flipped the drawer over, revealing the manila envelope taped to its bottom. Inside the envelope were numerous identity papers, passports, and documents made out in the various names the Contessa had used over the years. Exactly which pseudonym they would be using to flee the country would be decided later.

Phaedra stuffed the envelope inside a leather satchel, then hurried over to the red leather ottoman and removed its padded lid. Inside the hollowed out footrest was a metal strongbox containing two hundred thousand dollars in bundled currency, a number of credit cards, seven gold Rolex watches, and various pieces of male jewelry they had yet to convert into ready cash. Still, it was enough to take them somewhere far away. The French Riviera, perhaps, maybe the Golden Triangle. Anywhere but here.

As she lifted the strongbox from its hiding place, she was surprised to hear the sound of the Contessa’s private elevator coming to a stop. She turned and saw the Contessa wheeling herself out of the converted dumbwaiter.

Cursing under her breath, she put aside what she was doing and strode forward, trying her best to keep the panic from showing in her face. “Why aren’t you downstairs?”

“I can’t leave,” the Contessa replied, shaking her head.

Phaedra knelt so she could look her mistress in the face, placing a soft, young hand on the Contessa’s withered shoulder. “Why can’t you leave?”

“Because it’s time for my bath,” the Contessa said matter-of-factly, her gnarled hand closing on Phaedra’s throat, its grip as tight and inescapable as death’s.

There was no mistaking Red Velvet Manor for anything else, even from a distance. The red curtains, lit from behind, caused the windows to glow like the eyes of an animal.

Sonja cut the headlights as she came up the long, winding drive approaching the house. She could see the Boxter in which the renfield had made her escape earlier by the side of the house, the driver’s-side door still hanging open. She pulled up behind the sports car, blocking its path. She twitched her right arm, cupping her hand so it caught the switchblade as it dropped from its hidden sheath within the sleeve.

The front door was standing slightly ajar, the light from the foyer spilling across the front veranda. Sonja frowned and glanced up at the second-floor windows. Her prey was still here. She could feel it. The question was why!

It had taken Sonja twenty minutes to find this place. The renfield, the one called Phaedra, had that advantage, on top of a good five-minute lead. She cautiously pushed the front door, but it swung open without incident. She stepped inside the grand foyer, eyeing the decor for hidden trip wires or skulking bodyguards. There were none.

She tilted her head, allowing her mirrored sunglasses to slide to the end of her nose, and dropped her vision into the occult spectrum. What had been empty air a moment before was filled with dark energies that seethed like heat shadows cast against a summer sidewalk.

Out of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed men dressed in old-fashioned evening clothes, brandy snifters in their hands, watching a large dog mount a naked woman. But it couldn’t be a dog, because it had hands. As Sonja turned to get a better look, the shades flickered and disappeared.

Sonja shook her head. She had to keep her guard up and not allow herself to be distracted by shadows. Even though the Contessa might be crippled, she hadn’t gotten to be four centuries old on just luck and blood.

Sonja started up the grand staircase, scanning the doors that lined the second floor. They all seemed to be locked save for the one at the end, which stood slightly ajar. She nudged that door all the way open with the toe of her boot. The interior of the room was dark, save for a sliver of light from the half-open bathroom door that fell across the floor, illuminating the bloodred carpet.

“Do not be so hesitant, my dear,” said the Contessa from somewhere inside the darkened room. “You have nothing to fear from me.”

“Forgive me if I do not believe you,” Sonja replied as she crossed the threshold.

The Contessa sat propped up against the padded headboard of a large oval-shaped bed, dressed in a red velvet robe trimmed with monkey fur. Her hair spilled over her shoulders and across the red satin pillows like ink from an overturned bottle. Her skin was milky white and as smooth as alabaster, unmarred by age or imperfection. Her delicate, long-fingered hands were folded in her lap, cradling what looked like the remote control for a TV set.

Sonja glanced about, probing the shadows for signs of an ambush, but all she saw were a pair of prosthetic legs draped over a nearby chair like a pair of empty pants.

“Where is she, witch?”

“She?” the Contessa asked, arching an eyebrow.

“The renfield.”

The Contessa pointed with the remote control in the direction of the bathroom door, which stood slightly ajar. Sonja gave it a wary push, and it swung all the way open on its hinges, revealing Phaedra-born into the world as Faye Alice Baker-hung by her heels over the marble tub, her throat slit from ear to ear like a summer hog. The sight didn’t surprise Sonja; after all, she had caught the scent of blood the moment she entered the house.

“I hated having to do that,” the Contessa said, turning the remote control she held over and over again in her hands. “Really I did. But I had no choice. There was no point in running away again. I knew it, and so did Phaedra, although she could not bring herself to admit it. It wouldn’t be fair to her, leaving her on her own…. What would she do without me? I did her a kindness, really.”

“So you put her down, rather than leave her to face life without you. How altruistic of you. I notice you didn’t let her blood go to waste.”

“I will meet eternity in no skin but this one.”

“Once a vain, psychotic bitch, always a vain, psychotic bitch, eh? Put down the remote, old woman. I’ll be as quick about this as I can.”

The Contessa shook her head in defiance. “No! I refuse to die at the hands of a monster such as you! My family once strode the world as kings! What right does a lowborn freak of nature such as yourself have to destroy me? I was Made by my own hand, and by my own hand shall I be Unmade!”

The Contessa pointed the remote at the heavy velvet drapes and pushed the button a final time. The curtains parted like those of a stage, and the first rays of the rising sun spilled across the room. Both women instinctively lifted their arms to shield their faces from the sunlight, but only one burst into flames.

The Contessa screamed as her skin and hair caught fire, the flames quickly spreading to her gown and bedclothes. Sonja backed away, both repulsed and fascinated as the ancient vampire’s flesh bubbled and melted, dripping from her bones like wax from a candle. Within seconds the Contessa had been reduced to a thrashing skeleton, and yet she continued to scream.

The fire, having consumed the bed, quickly spread to the red velvet wallpaper. The walls ignited like dry kindling, and suddenly the entire room was ablaze. Sonja leapt through the curtain of fire and smoke that swallowed the door, rolling as she hit the hallway floor in order to extinguish the flames clinging to her jacket. The hair on the right side of her head was burned to the scalp and heat blisters were rising across her back, but she barely noticed.

The interior of die mansion was already filling with heavy, acrid smoke. As she hurried down the stairs towards the front door, Sonja felt a chill on her spine. Someone, or something, was watching her. She turned and saw what looked like a tall man the color of shadow standing on the landing above her, watching her with eyes made of fire.

Sonja ran out the front door and all the way to her car, throwing it into gear the second the engine turned over. She was halfway down the drive before she bothered to close the door. She didn’t know why the old blood-witch’s patron had chosen to lay low, and she didn’t care. Vampire slaying was one thing, but demon hunting was a whole other ball game.

Inside the funeral pyre that once was known as Red Velvet Manor, a shadow shaped like a man stood in the grand foyer and laughed as the grandfather clock with the zodiac face struck thirteen. Upon the final strike, a pillar of fire punched through the roof, and the final visitor to its gilded halls closed its burning front door behind him.

End

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