Vivienne

Stepping outside for a bit of fresh cool winter air, a young man walked to the edge of a faded wooden deck and sat down on the steps leading to the cold ocean.  He opened his phone and tapped an icon to open a game.  Little battling swordsmen took the field and conquered their way to his opponents gates, laying digital siege to the little castle on the screen. “I have you now, Ace3400.  You’ve beaten me long enough.  You can’t escape this time, I will be number one.”  His little swordsmen and catapults raised their victory flags and the young man, full of triumph and glee yelled, “Yes!”  A puzzled look crossed over the young man's face as one of his earbuds fell to the ground, interrupting his short lived victory. “That sucks!”  He yelped missing part of the music that played for his glorious moment. 

Faye waited for the man to bend over before pouncing.  The fledgling vampire with black striped hands had him pinned beneath her before the little sound device hit the ground.  -Yes, little tiger.  Feel how soft his flesh is. See that fear in his eyes.  You can hear his heart..bum-bum..bum-bum.-  Faye felt the fiery need to feed.  A quick inhale and the newborn caught the fresh and iron-copper scent of the man's blood just below the surface of his skin. -Good my little tigress.  Tear his fucking heart out like the animal you are.-  Frenzied by the thrill of the hunt and desire to taste the man trapped under her knees, Faye swung her almost paw shaped hand down and plunged it through her victims chest.  Clamping and crushing her meal’s breastbone, Faye felt the rush of hot blood race over her fingers.  Emitting an ear splitting scream a second later, Faye grabbed his throat silencing him. 

Blood gushed from the hole in her meals chest, streaming down his sides and into the waiting sand. “No.”  Faye growled, knowing she was being robbed by listening to the voice that was now laughing at her.  Thinking quickly, poked a hole in the biggest artery she knew, his aorta.  Blood flew from the source and she quickly clamped her lips and desperately drank the precious fluid.  When the first pulse reached the back of her throat, it almost felt like she’d taken a swallow of hundred degree soda.  The scorching sensation subsided with a tingle and once it settled comfortably in her stomach, she felt control of herself returning. -So rich, so thick. Cool satisfaction. Pure and metallic.  Keep drinking..what did she say?  Every drop?-  Purring contently as she drained her meal dry, Faye caught the light scent of perfume in the air.  Unable to move her lips from her prize, her famished green eyes looked up in time to see a short haired woman calling out. “Doug are you out…”

Instinct took over and Faye jumped on Doug’s sister, pinning her to the deck before the girl could finish the question.  Horror washed over the girl as she registered the blood smeared over the Korean vampire's face.   She started shaking uncontrollably once Faye exposed her twin sets of fangs with the flesh of her brother embedded within.  Faye reared her half-paw once more and stopped when a soothing French voice echoed in her mind. -You do not have to kill.  Use your lips.-  Snapping herself out of the blood frenzy she was in, the Korean vampire pressed her lips to the girl's neck and watched as her second blood-trophy slipped into a delightful coma.

Satisfied after watching the young girl sleep for a couple minutes, Faye bounded back to her first kill.  No sooner had Doug’s corpse disintegrated, Faye heard yet another voice approaching. “You have to be kidding me.”

“They were just out here.  Hey you two, get a coa…” an older woman walked through the sliding glass door and stopped, frozen in place.  Faye stood up from the place the woman’s son had been and considered what she had to do.  The young vampire knew that she had the speed to stop the woman from screaming and drawing attention to whoever else may be inside the house.  -Fear is a useful tool, little tiger.-  Once more the voice from the dark spoke delicately.  Listening to the urging, Faye let the woman scream to the top of her lungs and smiled as the mother of the two dropped to her knees.

-More.  Smell all that blood.  Much, much more.  A river full.-

Darting over to the crying mother, Faye picked the panicked woman up by the head and plunged her fangs into the woman’s jugular.  -Joyous.- she praised herself and cherished the stolen stream flowing into her body.  -Count to ten if you want her to live.-  Faye reminded herself.  Ignoring the advice that Vivienne had given her, Faye actively pulled more life than the woman’s rapid heartbeat could provide.

Hearing the scream from his wife, the last remaining member of the family came out with a butcher's knife and immediately witnessed the blood soaked visage of Faye, drinking from his wife. “Monster!”  He screamed in fury and lashed out with the knife hitting Faye squarely in the shoulder, hoping to free his wife from Faye’s grip.  When the knife’s tip broke against the vampire’s stone skin, the man looked down at the broken blade in shock.

Finishing off her second meal, Faye wiped her lips free of the woman’s blood and showed the man her dripping fingers, “I never wanted it to be this way.”  She muttered with disdain, forcing the black voice deeply back in her mind once more.

“Fuck you!” the father growled and attempted to tackle the small vampire.

Control over herself firmly in place, Faye side stepped and tripped the man and watched as he hit the ground, crashing his head into the wood plank.  Kneeling over the groaning father, “This will be over soon, I promise.  You won’t feel a thing.”

Gorging herself on the ichor of her last two meals, Faye took a useless breath and licked her lips clean.  Dejected, Faye started to walk slowly down the deck stairs and onto the beach when she caught a familiar scent in the air. “Vivienne.  I killed them all.”

“I deduced as much, given your horrific state.”  Vivienne silently strolled over to Faye, lifting her bloody chin to look into her green eyes. “Mon amour, you were left with very little options from what little I saw.”

“I want to say that I didn’t enjoy it.”  Faye hesitated with the realization of what she was about to say, “It felt great, like I was meant to do it.”  Faye leaned in and gave Vivienne a quick kiss. “I told myself to count to ten like you said, but I ignored it.  I wanted to hunt them.”

“Naturally.”  Vivienne exclaimed and walked onto the small deck.

“How much of this carnage did you see?”  Faye asked half pouting from losing the feeling of Vivienne’s lips on hers.

“I arrived when the mother started to scream.”  Vivienne responded while looking over the scene.  Blood was all over the place, claw marks in the wood slats, and cracked where the father had been slammed down.  Vivienne kept looking around the scene taking meticulous notes in her mind over the evidence of the attack here that couldn’t be explained by any natural means. “We have a little bit to clean up.”  She pointed to little bits of flesh, bone and hair that were strewn all over. “I am willing to bet that you didn’t even know you did this.”

 “No.  I…I thought the other kills were cleaner.”  Faye glanced around and took in the full scene where the family had been eviscerated. “I only remember clawing into the young man on the stairs there.”

“Mon amour, it will take time and experience.”  Vivienne stepped inside the house and checked for the most obvious means to remove the tidbits of evidence.  Finding that the house used natural gas, Vivienne darted through the kitchen and found the weakest line linked to the stove-top and cracked it along a kink that had formed.  A small hiss began and started filling the home with the smell of sulfur.  Swiftly, Vivienne tore up the wood planks that held the trace amounts of bodily remains and sealed the remainder of the house.  

“This isn’t perfect by any means, Faye.”  Vivienne remarked and started counting in her head. “We just need to give enough of an illusion that when people do arrive to put out this fire, they have the excuse not to delve into it any further.”

“He called me a monster.”  Faye sighed and collapsed into Vivienne, smearing crimson carnage on her blouse.

Swiping some of the clotting blood from Faye’s cheeks, “I would classify you more as a green eyed, tiger striped, blurry, puce, people-picker.”  Vivienne licks the thick fluid from her finger, and smiles.

Faye felt the feeling of dread disappear and pulled back, a look of disbelief crossing her vampiric eyes. “Ugh, Vivienne…” She chuckled, “...that is the fourth attempt this evening.”  Faye shook her head a bit more and pats her partner on the shoulder. “Stay a doctor, or take another thousand years learning to be a chef.  Do everyone a favor and don’t try to be a comedian, you suck at it.”

Vivienne winked, finished her internal countdown and lit a few bushes around the perimeter of the house aflame before walking to the edge of the water. “That shouldn’t take long to..”  Vivienne was cut off when an errant ember landed by the weak door seal, sending a roaring flame through the home.  “There we go.”

“I am still hungry.”  Faye commented.

Vivienne took Faye’s hand into her own and whisked down the coastline. “Let’s see if we can avoid killing the rest of the evening.  There is a gathering of unsuspecting people just waiting to be fed on.”

Faye had no problem keeping up with the inhuman sprinter’s pace that she and Vivienne were in. The young vampire was taking note of exactly how her body had changed overnight.  Her muscles never seemed to get tired, she never needed to breath, never had any sweat no matter how hard she pushed herself.  “This is amazing, Vivienne.” Faye marveled to herself as she took air into her lungs without the old burning feeling she used to have while exercising. “I feel the tension in my thighs, I feel my calves moving, down to the wet sand being forced between my toes.”

“All fueled by blood, mon amour.” Vivienne added.

“It also feels wrong somehow.” Faye offered quickly before continuing. “When I used to run before, I knew that I was subject to where I was running.  Now, I feel like it is subject to me.”

“What do you mean, Faye?  You sound confused.”

“Alright.  It's the feeling that the sand is at my mercy, like it has no recourse but to do what I want it to.”

“I think I get what you mean.  Indeed, you are correct.  Your world is now at your disposal.”  Vivienne confirmed as they stopped just out of sight from a very large crowd.

Her mouth watering from the sweet scents of the humans gathered and milling about, Faye wiped a small amount of scarlet drool from the corner of her mouth. “The more I use the more I need.  I want it.”  Concentrating on the crowd and the gentle thumps of their hearts, Faye looked up at Vivienne confident. “I count twenty-five.”

Vivienne surveyed the area quickly and returned to Faye’s side. “I do believe this is a meet and greet of some sort.”

“Speed-dating.”  Faye shrugged. “Let’s eat.”

Vivienne placed her hand on her girlfriend's shoulder, “Let’s plan this out a bit more.”

Faye felt the ache in her throat rising once more.  The new vampire knew that she needed to devour the hot and thick iron rich blood that the group had in order to quench that thirst and keep the dark-tiger at bay. “We can be in and out before they even hit the ground.”

“I thought you didn’t want to kill.”  Vivienne urged.