Chapter Twenty-Five
Claudiana had been doing some redecorating, preparing for her Carnival which was to take place in a day's time. Music pulsated, rattling the walls of the old building. The people--all of them not innocent enough to be human, and too sinister to be merely vampires--danced wildly, and the smell of sweat and sex mixed with the smell of blood, and, underneath it all, death. And these creatures were nothing compared to what would be at the Carnival.
I pushed my way through the crowd, dancing and weaving my way through things my human brain couldn't process. Eventually I reached the back of the main room, where up on a stage a throne, not unlike the one found beneath the catacombs of the Master's lair, had been erected. Claudiana sat on that throne, dressed in an evening gown of deep royal purple. It was very turn-of-the-century Paris, very Interview With the Vampire.
"Hello, slayer," she greeted, smiling at me wide enough to reveal her small fangs.
"Claudiana," I greeted, bowing my head to her. "Why have you brought me here again?"
"I heard something very interesting from Mikhail," she said. Her eyes were alight with excitement; she was enjoying herself. I'm pretty sure I wasn't the cause of her enjoyment--perhaps she was excited by all the decadence going on around her. Yeah, that had to be it. "I wanted to see if it was true."
"And was it?" I asked, an eyebrow raised in question.
She glanced thoughtfully at me, then gave the fang-baring smile again. "You bear their mark upon you," she said. "He said Stavros and Winter had made you their human consort. I had to see for myself."
"Well, they did," I said curtly, still angry at the two vampires who had only been trying to save me.
"Funny." The thoughtful look was back again. "In all my years, I've never heard of two vampires sharing a human consort before."
"Yeah, well Stavros claims we're an anomaly."
Claudiana laughed, the tinkering laugh of a little girl. "Everything about you is an anomaly, slayer."
"I'll take that as a compliment."
Claudiana turned to a redheaded woman sitting beside her. The woman's hair was a prettier red than mine--while mine was coppery orange, the woman's was the color of wine. Although that may have had something to do with the fact that the woman was a vampire. "Slayer," Claudiana said, "this is Aria, one of my children."
The redheaded vampire turned to glare at me. "Aria doesn't like the fact that I'm helping you," Claudiana continued. "Do you, Aria?"
"No, Mother," the vampire Aria responded, still glaring at me. I shivered; did all Claudiana's children call her "mother?"
"Did you bring me here to play games, Claudiana?" I asked, tiring of her bullshit. "Or did you want to talk about something?"
Again, the tinkering laugh. "My, they really have done a number on you, slayer," she said. "Too bad you inherited Stavros' impatience, instead of Winter's calmness."
I just stared at her. I was ready to get to the bottom of this little dream-visit.
Claudiana sighed. "I brought you here because there is something I must show you," she said. "Something you need to know."
"What is it?" I asked, suddenly apprehensive.
Claudiana brought a tiny wrist to her mouth and bit down, the skin making a disgusting squelching noise as it broke. Then, she held out her wrist--blood slowly trickling out of the wound--to me.
"What do you expect me to do with that?" I asked her.
"In order to see what I know, you must drink from me," she said.
"No!" I cried. "Absolutely not."
"It will not hurt you, and you will not be bound to me in any way," Claudiana said. "That's what you fear, is it not?"
I swallowed the lump in my throat; she had nailed my problem right on the head. "Why have me drink? Why not just tell me?"
Quickly her gaze flicked to the crowd before settling back on me. "Something is always listening," she said. She offered her wrist again. "Please, you must drink. You must know. And it must happen before you wake up."
Sighing in defeat, I walked the few steps to the throne. I got down on my knees beside Claudiana and brought her bleeding wrist to my mouth. "I don't have to bite, do I?" I asked, looking at the blood.
"No--tasting will do," she said. "Please, slayer, I do not have much time. It is almost dawn; I must sleep soon."
Grimacing, I put my hand over the wound and let Claudiana's blood fill my mouth. The first thing I noticed was that it was warm; she had fed recently. That was all I had time to notice, because once I swallowed that first bit of blood, I was pulled into one of my weird visions. Only, this time I wasn't in Mikhail's mind. I was in someone else's, someone I didn't recognize.
I opened the doors to my bedroom to find Bashkim standing there, staring blankly at the wall before him. I put a hand on his shoulder and whispered into his ear, "Always a bodyguard, never worth guarding."
"Mikhail told you to stay inside," Bashkim said. "You are not well."
I sighed in frustration. "It gets so lonely being cooped up all the time. Mikhail's always gallavanting off somewhere and leaving me here. He never lets me have any fun." I pouted just for good measure.
Bashkim was looking at me, his eyes almost pleading. "Please, go back inside," he said.
"Do you want me?" I asked suddenly, causing his eyes to go wide.
"Excuse me?"
"Do you want me?" I moved closer to him so that our cold bodies were pressed together. "I've seen the way you look at me when you think Mikhail isn't looking. Now, answer my question. Do you want me?"
He stared at me for the space of one, two, three breaths. Of course, neither one of us really had to breathe. "Yes," he finally answered.
I smiled up at him, wrapped my slender arms around his neck. "Then kiss me," I instructed. He lowered his lips to mine, and when I deepened the kiss he responded enthusiastically. Turning, he pinned me against the wall, lifting me up so that I could wrap my legs around his waist. I could feel, even through my dress and his pants, that he was happy to have me there. I broke my lips from his and kissed trails to his neck. I licked the skin beneath his ear and then, without warning, reared back and sank my fangs in. He groaned in pleasure. I drank, and drank, and drank, until I was almost on a high from his blood. And then, when he tried to pull away from me, I tightened my arms around him, keeping him from breaking my macabre kiss. He tried to put me down but my legs locked around his waist; I was putting every once of my super-human strength to keeping him where he was.
"Stop," he panted. "Stop, you are taking too much!"
I barely heard him; the blood and power was roaring in my ears. In a burst of strength he pushed my legs down, almost taking one out of the socket in the process. Still, I held onto him with all I had, drinking, ever drinking. I hadn't fed all day preparing for this, making sure I'd have enough room for all his blood. I drank and drank and he became weaker and weaker. Soon it was I holding him up. Eventually I sank to the floor, lowering him as gently as I could. Still, I drank. Most people never think about bleeding a vampire to death; but even a vampire can't survive without some blood in its system.
Finally I had taken his last drop. He shuddered and died in my arms. I reared back, snarling, his blood coating my mouth. I had always been a messy eater. To make sure he didn't get back up again I unbuttoned his shirt to reveal a smooth, tan chest. Then, using my long, talon-like nails, I cut him open just below the rib cage, reached in, and pulled out his heart. There was only one way to make sure that Bashkim didn't rise again, and that I got what I wanted. Bringing the heart to my mouth, I devoured it.
I left his finally lifeless corpse in the hallway and returned to the bedroom. I sat at my table, brushing my long chocolate-brown hair, and admiring the way my skin looked. It was positively glowing with the power I had taken from Bashkim. Soon, I thought to my reflection. Soon.
I practically fell back into my own mind. Horrified at what I had seen, I pushed myself away from Claudiana, falling back on my ass by the throne. "Now do you see why you had to know?" she asked me.
I was still in shock, so it took me a moment to get what I wanted to say out. "That vampire...she...she killed Bashkim, she...she's harvesting other vampires' powers for her own," I finally said.
Claudiana nodded. "Bashkim is the first vampire she has taken power from," she said. "But he was very powerful, and now so is she. If she does it again..."
I shivered. "Who is she?" I asked.
"Come now, slayer, do not tell me you didn't recognize her?"
"No."
"Ah," Claudiana said. "Well, I cannot tell you her name. That is something you must learn for yourself." Claudiana looked around and sniffed the air once before turning back to me. "You're about to wake up," she said. "Remember what I showed you, tell your new masters. They will need to know."
I nodded, and hesitated for a moment before saying, "Thank you, Claudiana."
The vampire trapped in a little girl's body only gave me a smile, more malicious than I'd ever seen from her. "Do not thank me yet," she said, and everything went black.
