Toxic Read online

  Annabelle jumped up and leaned over to tap furiously on the keyboard of my laptop. “I read an article about him recently and it had a picture of him. Here, see for yourself,” she replied as she tilted the screen towards me.

  I wanted to pretend disinterest. Who cared what he looked like? But dammit, with more lives than a cat, I couldn’t fight curiosity. My deep seated need to know everything made me look.

  Oh, he is a handsome devil. Tousled blond hair, clear blue eyes hidden behind a bookish pair of lenses and a sensual mouth made for biting. Just the type of snack I liked to enjoy when my hormones craved something carnal-what a shame my partners never survived. “Good looking in a nerdy way or not, I’m still not crazy about the idea of letting him poke and prod at me.”

  Annabelle shrugged. “Suit yourself. Me, I wouldn’t mind stripping for him and letting him search all of my cavities with any of his body parts.”

  I laughed at her shameless comment before I dove on her for a satisfying nibble on her neck. As her rich blood rolled down my throat, warming me and speeding up my heart, I wondered if I’d get a chance to snack on the good doctor, in the interest of science, of course.

  Yum.

  * * * *

  Several days later

  The doorbell rang and I scowled. My dreaded guest had arrived.

  I smoothed down my silk blouse and already wrinkle free skirt. I recognized my nervous gestures as a way of controlling my environment-or so the psychiatrist I’d eaten and absorbed claimed. I didn’t like my queen’s plan of offering me up as a white rat for human experimentation. But I couldn’t disobey a direct order.

  I’d managed to get my way in at least one respect and that was the doctor would reside here with me while he probed me. It took some finagling and an investment in medical equipment that my kind didn’t require, but I refused to put myself in a strange location under the control of humans. To my surprise, I didn’t have to argue long, and so the time had quickly arrived along with the man who would dissect me without killing me.

  Talks with my queen also ended up with the decision that broaching the coming menace would be at my discretion. In other words, if I didn’t kill the doctor and he wasn’t a complete moron, I’d let him in on the secret. We needed to start getting some outside views on the situation. Our usual tactic of eat the enemy was not exactly feasible given what we would face-and the fact the marauders tasted bad.

  Would this Dr. Angelus end up owning half a brain or would he be an intellectual idiot? I’d reserve judgment until I met the man.

  In the meantime, I’d done my own research on the fellow only to grudgingly admit the man had some impressive credentials. He came with all kinds of degrees and masters from medical to psychological along with some science. My head ached already imagining all the big words he’d force on me to prove his human superiority. Still bottom of the food chain, though, I thought with a smirk.

  I heard the front door answered by Adolphus. Too old to feed me, but still useful in other matters, he acted as my butler. From my spot in the parlor I waited and listened impatiently to the murmurs. After what seemed an interminable wait, footsteps approached and I posed against the fireplace. First impressions were everything.

  In a pompous tone only prideful servants achieve, my elderly butler announced my dreaded visitor. “Dr. Raphael Angelus to see you, ma’am.”

  “Thank you, Adolphus,” I said in my snooty lady-of-the-manor voice.

  In walked the doctor and out whooshed my breath. Somehow, he’d looked a lot smaller in the pictures. In person though, the man towered-good thing I’d worn my stupidly high heels, it put me at his chin. His blond hair was trimmed shorter than the image I’d seen, but his eyes were the same clear blue behind his scholarly glasses. His lips quirked into a smile at my perusal-I’d soon wipe that look from his face.

  As I glided towards him, my hips swishing hypnotically, I took in the rest of him from the broad shoulders stretching the ill-fitting suit jacket, to his big feet encased in scuffed loafers. The man looked like a text book case of geeky professor, and given his many layers of loose clothing, I couldn’t tell if his width derived from fat or muscle. Not that I truly cared, because after all, his only purpose was to test and observe me as the first vampire guinea pig. Once he’d learned the truths we’d selected as safe to impart, he could relay his findings and thus calm the human masses. Lulling them into a false sense of security. I almost bit my lip as I tried not break out into a villainous laugh.

  More nervous than expected, my mind rambled in circles trying to distract me. It didn’t work. I was still much too aware of him. His scent tickled my nose, clean and fresh with a mouthwatering maleness. I inhaled deep. The sound of his heart beating drove me wild. It thumped in my mind like a sensual music. He came across as utterly delicious.

  His gaze slid up and down my frame as thoroughly as I’d inspected him, but unlike other human males, he didn’t flush or tent his pants even though I oozed sexuality-on purpose of course. Like a tap, I could turn on beguilement with just a thought. To no avail with the good doctor, it appeared. I found his lack of reaction odd. I cocked a hip, licked my lips and smiled at him. And again, he didn’t respond as he should have. Instead, as if I were asexual, he thrust out a hand.

  “Countess Bathory, thank you so much for agreeing to see me.”

  Taken aback at his lack of interest in my feminine charms, I didn’t immediately respond. Then, in a lightning flash, I understood. He’s a man lover. “I am delighted to be of service, Dr. Angelus,” I said with false enthusiasm as I stuck my hand into his to shake it. A shiver shot up my spine as our skin connected, a warm tingle that ran up and down my body before it centered itself in my cleft-a surprisingly pleasant sensation. Startled, I took a step back and let my hand slip from his. He seemed to notice nothing amiss and turned abruptly from me to head back out to the hall.

  I gaped at his retreating body. Where is he going? I didn’t give him permission to leave. With the choice of yodeling after him like some fisherwife or scurrying after him like a peon, I chose neither. He was here to examine me. He’d have to come back.

  I draped myself on a couch and had little time to ponder my strange reaction to him and his lack thereof to me. He returned almost immediately-his gait smooth and unlike the shuffle I’d expected of a man who spent days in labs. A thick briefcase dangled from one of his hands and a laptop case from the other. He set them both down and opened the fat one. He rummaged for a moment and pulled out a notepad. He immediately jotted some notes. His head bent over his task, he said not a word to me.

  Curiosity burned me, but I refused to give in and ask what he noted. I’d find out later when he slept and I snooped through his things. Privacy was for stupid people who didn’t have enemies. Me, I trusted no one.

  The scratching of his pen stopped and he raised his eyes to meet mine. “Sorry, but I wanted to write down my first observations.”

  “And they are?” I asked before I could curb my tongue.

  I could have sworn mirth flashed in eyes, but he dropped his gaze too quickly for me to be sure. “Um, I wrote that you are an attractive woman appearing to be in her mid to late twenties.”

  I preened at attractive-maybe not as immune as I’d surmised. “I was forty when my human side died,” I supplied.

  “Really?” his eyes rose to meet mine again and I pushed a little power at him, a little hey, don’t you think I’m hot mojo. Instead of drooling, he looked away.

  I frowned.

  He scribbled again.

  I tapped my nails on the wooden armrest of the couch, the rat-tatting sound loud in the almost silent room.

  He stopped writing and looked up again. “Sorry, just writing down your age at the time you were turned.”

  “You could have looked that up on the internet,” I replied, wondering at the fact he didn’t even know such a basic fact about me.

  “I didn’t want to taint my findings by doing research on you beforehand,” he expl
ained. “So, I hope you’ll excuse me if I take a lot of notes or ask a lot of questions.”

  As answers went, his made sense. “I’ve been told to cooperate, so ask away.”

  “If you don’t mind me asking, you said you were forty when you died yet you look much younger. Is this common for older humans who are changed into vampires?”

  I almost bristled at his calling me old; however, I reminded myself he’d guessed my exterior age as much younger. “Oh, I had to work at regaining the beauty of my youth. I bathed in the warm blood of several hundred virgins before I was able to reverse the telltale signs of aging.”

  My response startled him and he peered at me with his mouth rounded in an ‘O’ of surprise. “Seriously?”

  I smiled with a lot of teeth. “Totally. It’s why I was arrested and convicted.”

  He knelt in front of me scribbling. “Tell me more.”

  “How about I start from when I was turned?” A day I still remembered vividly.

  “Can you just briefly summarize your life up to that point starting with what year you were born?”

  I leaned back and remembered back to a time when I was still so ignorant… so human. “I was born in Hungary on August seventh, 1560. I had a normal childhood. As was usual for the time, I was married by the time I was fifteen to Ferenc Nádasdy. We had several children together.” Precious darlings whose faces I could still clearly see in my mind. I skimmed over them. “Some of them lived, some died as was common for the time.” The grief I’d suffered at their early demise still stung hundreds of years later. Unbeknownst to all but my queen, I kept a watchful eye over my few remaining descendants who’d changed their names to escape my legacy of murder and blood. Too bad for them, they still carried my genes.

  “Did they know of your change?”

  I shook my head vehemently. “No. Once I was turned, I prohibited my children from visiting me.” Not out of shame for my newfound status, but because I feared losing control and eating them.

  “So how were you changed? Who did it?”

  “It happened in the year of 1600. My husband was away at war, again.” He’d spent most of our marriage elsewhere, the ideal situation for an arranged marriage like ours. “I was in charge of the castle and the defense of our lands. The last night of my humanity, a storm was brewing and the household had just settled itself for the night when a knock sounded.” It was so easy to slip back in my memories to the moment that changed me forever. I could still hear the echoing, ominous thud as someone braved the wicked weather to knock at my door.

  My servants huddle in the common room, their fearful eyes trained on the main door to the hall. Dressed in my sleep wrap, I chide them for being foolish and superstitious. I open the door, the coolness of the night and the dampness of the pouring rain making me shiver. At first I see nothing, but a crack of lightning illuminates the courtyard. I let out a small scream at the sudden looming figure of a stranger dressed in a heavy cloak.

  His low voice emerges from the depth of his hood. “I apologize for the lateness, fair mistress; however, my carriage has broken down. If I might humbly request a bed for the night, in the morn I shall depart, seeking aide in repairing my carriage.”

  Raised to be charitable to others of my caste, something evidenced by the cut of his cloak and the richness of the fabric, I hasten to invite him in. “Enter and warm yourself by the fire.” How little do I know I invite my doom.

  My servants know. They cling to each other, cringing and staying as far as they can get from the gentleman. When kind tones do not move them, I resort to harsher words. My servants scuttle to wake the slumbering coals in the fireplaces and set a kettle to boil. The stranger warms his pale hands in front of the fire and turns as I approach. He removes his cloak and I am struck by his handsome features. Darkly attractive, his pale skin is offset by his ebony hair. I find myself lost in his eyes and for the first time in my life, I feel desire.

  My heart races and I can only watch as he approaches me. He strokes a slender finger down the column of my throat. I swallow and tremble, caught like a fly in the web, except, unlike the fly, I am not sure if I want to escape his sultry promise.

  “Such beauty, slowly caving to the demands of age,” he says, shaking his head almost sadly.

  “Such is the way of life,” I answer breathlessly.

  “And if you could have your youth returned, and walk the earth forever?”

  “A fantasy,” I scoff. “And even if possible, at what price?”

  “Your humanity.”

  I want to step back from him at his frightening words. I suddenly wonder if I should have heeded my servants. But hindsight cannot save me. I remain frozen as the stranger leans down and brushes his lips over the edge of my jaw and down my neck. His cold embrace chills me and fear sweeps through me.

  “Please don’t,” I whisper.

  “Oh, but I think I shall,” he murmurs. Then he sinks his teeth into me. The pain makes me whimper, but a prisoner under his spell, I cannot run or cry for help. Instead, I stand there as he sucks at my skin, the sound of his swallowing loud in the room.

  His arms come around me and support me when I slump to the floor. He draws me back up, and still he drinks even as my vision blurs and my thoughts float hazily.

  I wake the next day in my bed, heartily believing I’ve had a nightmare. My mirror, though, tells me otherwise as I see the vivid red punctures in my throat.

  I run wildly through the castle, screaming for my servants. They ignore my cries and bar me from leaving. I barricade myself in my rooms, piling furniture in front of the door. It doesn’t stop him from coming.

  This time he doesn’t just drink my blood, he takes my body, showing me for the first time a woman’s pleasure. But in his erotic embrace, I also find the end. As I thrash in the throes of death, he gashes his wrist and holds the leaking wound over my mouth. I try to seal my lips shut, but the agony racing through me opens my mouth in a glass shattering scream. A drop hits my tongue, the coppery taste, salty and repugnant. I turn my head in refusal, but he forces me back and when I scream next from the pain, he places his slit wrist in my mouth. He pins me and I cannot prevent the thick blood from pouring into my mouth. It rolls down my throat, gagging me. With a choice of drowning or swallowing, I ingest what he gives me. The pain reaches a crescendo and I pray for death. I get what I wish for.

  I die that night, and for the next few days, I lie in my bed as a lifeless corpse. Even in the shell of my body I am aware as my humanity is discarded and a new me is born. When I finally rise, an improved version of myself, I am hungry.

  So very hungry.

  My dark lover brings me food in the form of a catatonic servant. I don’t want to hurt him. I’ve known Georgi since childhood. I cry and try to run, but my creator holds me. He forces me to smell Georgi and his sweet scent is too much for me to resist. My mouth waters and I scream at the sudden tearing pain in my gums. My creator lets me fall to my knees. With trembling hands, I reach up to touch pointed teeth. I moan in despair.

  My new lover kneels beside me and strokes my hair. “Hush now. We must not show weakness. You are one of the elite now, and you must feed.”

  “But must it be humans?” I cry.

  “Think of them as rabbits. Now come, eat and discover true strength. Drink of his essence and live forever.”

  I want to cling to my humanity, but I cannot fight the lure of the blood-and the promise of immortality. I throw myself on the human and I force myself to forget his face and his name. My teeth scratch the skin and a trickle of blood teases me.

  “Bite him,” urges my dark lover as he lifts my skirts from behind. My thoughts are frenzied, but I do as I’m told. I bite down as my creator takes me with a forceful thrust. Warm, pulsing blood, fills my mouth, stroking my taste-buds with its sweetness. I devour my first human down to the last drop as my dark lover avails himself of my flesh. The shudders of my body as the life leaves my victim confuse me. They are too painful for an orgasm. My
creator laughs at me as he pulls away from my body. I barely hear him as he explains I have ingested the spirit of the man I killed, a spirit that will forever be a part of me. The soul of the human fights me, a psychic battle that leaves me hoarse from screaming. My body aches from the thrashing. But in the end, I win.

  The horror of death and its whiplash doesn’t stop the hunger though. Night after night, I hunt and kill. I cannot help myself, for my dark lover disappears. And alone with my insatiable lust for death, I go slightly mad.

  And thus my time as the Blood Countess is begun.

  Silence reigned when I stopped talking, the story of my creation not a flattering or pretty one. Unfortunately, too many tales of my atrocities, both real and imagined-and actually worse than recorded-were common knowledge. I left some details out, such as the fact we absorbed a person’s essence, their soul if you would, at their moments of death. Some things humans just didn’t need to know.

  “Who was your creator? What happened to him?” Dr. Angelus chewed the end of his pen after he asked.

  I laughed. “He told me his name was Valor. I never knew where he came from. I discovered later that he was killed by a father who came across him as he was having his way with the man’s daughter.” Out of a sense of duty to my creator, I killed the father, then bathed in his daughter’s blood.

  “So what happened next? Did you move away from your home? When did you discover that bathing in blood would turn back the signs of age?”

  I smirked. “What happened next was I fed my newfound hunger. I killed nightly.” Ahh, what a glorious orgy of death those years were. With each spirit I consumed, I got stronger. And crazier. “It was quite by accident that I discovered if bathed in blood, I could reverse the mark of time on my body, virgins’ blood being the most potent. I learned on my own how to bind my servants to me so that they would obey. They brought me victims from outside my lands and helped me grow stronger. But, not strong enough to save myself when they came to arrest me.”

  “Who arrested you?” He stared at me raptly, my morbid story fascinating the researcher in him.