Excerpt: Wine of the Soul

Part I
Awakening
-1-

Frank turned the backhoe off and climbed out of the cab. He approached the hole he had dug through the foundation of the old house. He could have sworn he had just seen… but no, that would be too weird. He squinted his eyes and focused on the white thing sticking out of the mangled dirt and cement.

“Hey, Buck! I think I found something here!”

The fat man trudged around the backhoe and braced himself with one hand on the tread. Frank jumped down into what had once been the cellar, crouched down next to the hole, and started throwing aside debris.

“The fuck? What is that?” called Buck.

Frank brushed the last large quantity of dirt away from the face of the corpse and called back to Buck without turning toward him.

“Looks like a dead chick. Couldn’t have been buried here too long. The worms haven’t had their way with her.”

“Hey, watch it,” said Buck, “Have some fuckin’ respect for the dead, Frank.”

“Jeez, sorry. Hey, at least I caught it before the backhoe tore her to pieces.”

Frank brushed dirt away from her upper torso and found her naked breasts. Though cold, they still felt oddly alive. The woman was extremely emaciated, as though mummified somehow, but her skin was soft rather than dry and leathery. He took a bit longer brushing the dirt away from her as he marveled at his find.

“We should call the boss and see what he wants to do about this,” called Buck, tipping his hat and wiping sweat from his brow with a nervous glance around the construction site, “I bet the coroner would love to get his paws on her. Some big ass murder mystery to solve, they love that shit.”

“Jesus Frank, you watch too much TV. You know there’s no such thing as Quincy, right?”

Frank felt an unexpected jolt of terror at the mention of the fictional TV coroner. His hand jerked back as though shocked. He shuddered and looked at his hand. He felt dirty, as though his cleaning of the body had somehow violated it. Logically, he wondered how he could violate something that was dead. Another part, one that almost felt imposed upon him, was disgusted. He backed away from the corpse holding the offending hand.

“Yeah,” he said as Buck helped him out of the pit as the rest of the crew started making their way to the edge with much muttering, “Call the boss. Let’s get her the hell out of here. She gives me the willies.”

-2-

Max Denisov was giddy with anticipation. The Historic Preservation Society had been too late to stop the developers from demolishing the building, but what the construction crew had found sealed under it's foundation could possibly make the sacrifice worthwhile. If the estimates were correct, the building was likely built just before the Civil War. That would make the body buried beneath it almost a century and a half dead.

Max pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose and stared at the gaunt woman lying on the autopsy table. Removing her clothing had been a chore. He had needed Albert's help for that. Albert wasn't incredibly bright, but he had steady hands and wasn't easily shaken. Max had been too nervous to remove the decomposed layers of clothing without utterly destroying them. He had contented him self with supporting the body during the process.

Albert had voiced his concerns over the handling of the autopsy. The little shit had actually requested to perform it behind his back. Fortunately, Max was the boss and not Albert. He had shut the upstart prick down and sent him home for the day. He would go over his head tomorrow and get permission. The young ones always did. No respect for their elders at all. Hell, he was probably on the phone schmoozing his way into the autopsy while Max was brooding over it. Max would have to cut tonight or take the chance that his director would turn it over to Albert.

He started his recording and gently cleaned the soil off of the body.

"What truly amazes me, and the small portion of the scientific community in the know that this point, is the almost complete lack of external decomposition. The body should have been riddled with maggots and worms early on, especially since it was buried with no casket or coverings of any sort. Instead, the skin appears to be practically flawless and untouched by time. It is white as alabaster, but extremely emaciated by death and age."

Max cleared away even more of the dirt and red clay. He carefully ran his gloved hands over the skin. He remained mesmerized for a moment by the overwhelming urge to take the body out of this place and hide it from prying eyes. He shook himself from this odd reverie and continued his observations.

"The skin is hardly even leathery. In fact, I find that it is still quite pliable to a certain degree. The hair seems to be lackluster, yet very much rooted in place. She must have been a real looker in her time."

For some morbid reason, this statement seemed to feel quite appropriate. He could almost hear the woman laughing at this in his head as though it was some sort of joke. Max began to think that perhaps he should let Albert at least sit in on the autopsy. Late nights never used to bother Max, but perhaps his age was catching up with him after all. He turned to make the call when he suddenly felt an urge to continue his work.

“You don't want to call that little bastard. He is just begging for a sign of weakness before he moves in for the kill, old man."

The thought passed through his head in a blink, but it left an indelible mark. Age was no excuse for letting the willies get the best of him. Max cursed himself for almost flushing his pride down the drain by calling Albert. What was he going to say when the boy answered the phone? Was he going to ask the boy to come over and hold his hand because some long-dead woman had sent waves of goose flesh over his arms and a cold chill up his spine? Max may as well tell him that he was afraid of the dark, piss away his last hopes for the director's position, and go into early retirement. No way in hell was he going to let that happen.

Max finished cleaning the body off and leaned over with his scalpel.

"Come on, miss. Let's get it on."

“Yes, let's.”

-3-

The haze of her slumber began to fade as the last drops of blood trickled down her throat. Her long-deprived body tingled with the pins and needles of awakening. The pain of healing was exquisite. The good Mr. Denisov had not been young and fresh, but her current state of frailty would not have allowed a kill any stronger than this. He had been physically powerful, but had become lost in the ecstasy of the Kiss. She could not remember how it worked, but she instinctively knew that his will was weak enough that she could have him with little effort.

Her memories gradually began to flow as the blood cascaded down her throat. As the growing pain wracked her, she remembered another instance when she had borne witness to a similar, yet far less intoxicating, level of pain.

-4-

Marisa
“Yes, that is my name…”
had been a very naughty girl. Father was going to be awfully angry with her. She had soiled her dress playing with Jimmy and Belinda and the church social was only an hour away. He was calling her in and even now had that dangerous sound in his voice.

“Marisa! You come on home now! You had better be presentable or there will be hell to pay!”

She was half a mile away at the creek, but he sounded like he was just through the trees. Her heart was pounding through her chest and she started to cry. She wanted to run and hide, but he would likely find her and kill her if she did. His hounds could sniff her out no matter where she hid and he was no novice at tracking either. She would have to go home and face the music.

The though of him whipping her with his leather belt sent shocks of horror through her flesh. Last time he had been angry he had turned the buckle on her. That was Randy Nesmith’s fault, though. She had fought him when he lifted her skirt to see if she had hair between her legs yet. Her father had caught them and simply stared for what seemed to be an eternity frozen in time. He stalked forward, took Randy by the arm and walked him home.

When Father had returned home, Mother was nowhere to be found, as she usually was when Father was in a foul mood with the children. She had likely taken Billy out to pick blackberries in the woods so that he would not have to hear Father’s rage. Mother learned early on to stay out of Father’s way when he was in a foul temper. That day, he was near insane with anger.

Marisa heard his footfalls on the steps. Her terror called up an image of a hulking beast lumbering through the house toward her room with a hunger in its belly that called for the flesh of little girls. Father’s rage had erupted forth and had made him into a monster. Marisa was going to die and it was going to hurt in every bone of her body.

The creature that emerged through the door had a mane of wild hair, his shirt sleeves rolled up, and the collar undone. He was filthy with sweat, dirt, and specks of blood. He held in his right hand not a belt, but a whip. His left hand was clenched in a loose fist around the dangerous end of it.

“Marisa, you are growing into a beautiful woman,” he said as he drew the whip under her chin to make her look at him, “You are going to go through a lot of changes soon. As a woman, your mother bears the responsibility of explaining these changes to you. Now, little Randy told me what he was doing and that you were fighting him off.”

Marisa felt a bit of relief at this. She was certain that Randy would lie to avoid a beating, but there seemed to be at least a small glimmer of hope in this revelation.

“I am not going to punish you for this sin. I want you to remember today well, though. Next time, I will take it out of your hide. You understand?”

“Yes sir,” Marisa said.

“Now go out and get Mother.”

“Yes sir,” Marisa said as she slipped out of the room.

She ran down the steps with her skirt pulled up, but not too far, to keep from tripping. The door slammed against the house a bit too hard and she felt a shock of fear that the sudden noise would remind Father that he was angry with her and send him barreling after her. As she reached the trail to the creek, he had not emerged from the house. Maybe her father had exorcised his demons this day by beating on Randy. It pained her to think such a selfish thought, but she was actually thankful that Randy had been beaten instead of her. She was also thankful that she had not borne witness to the event.

When she finally reached the blackberry batch, she was completely out of breath. Mother had turned white as soon as Marisa was within view.

“Girl, what are you doing here? If you are trying to run from Father, he will be furious.”

“No, Mother. He said that he is not going to punish me. He wants you to come home. Randy told him what happened and he is not mad at me.”

Mother stared at Marisa for a long moment and then scanned the woods for sight or sound of the beast who she was certain would come crashing down the trail any moment to take his rage out on all of them. The beast never emerged, so she looked back at Marissa.

“Well, let’s not keep Father waiting. You know how he likes to be on-time to church.”

When they arrived back at the house, Father was in the sitting room standing in front of the crucifix on the wall. He still held the whip in his hands.

“Father, you called for us?” asked Mother.

“Yes, Mother,” he said without turning away from the suffering Christ, “Billy, go on and clean up. Then go to your room. We have grown-up talk to be about. Marisa, you stay. You should be here for this.”

Marisa stopped at the foot of the steps and told Billy to go on. After the door was closed upstairs, Father spoke again without turning.

“Let’s go to the cellar. We need to find some vegetables for supper tonight. I feel in the mood for some of those green beans that you make so well, Marisa.”

Mother stood staring at him for a moment too long. Marisa, feeling danger in the delay, pulled at her sleeve until Mother was able to uproot herself and follow. Marissa lit a candle and opened the cellar door. When they started to descend the steps into the darkness, Father finally turned to follow.

When they got to the bottom, Marisa started toward the shelf where the canned vegetables were lined up. The children had almost never been allowed down in the cellar, and Marisa felt as thought the dank air was crawling up her nose and suffocating her like some invisible imp bent on claiming her soul.

“Marisa, come here and sit down,” said Father as he placed a chair next to where he stood.

Marisa sat in the chair. Father turned toward Mother, who was standing in front of him on the stained floor

“Mother, you know what happened with our little Marisa today. Randy told me about the conversation that made him want to take a look at her privates. Seems that Marisa saw you with your privates showing and noticed the hair in that place.”

“I was in the privy and she didn’t knock…,” Mother trailed off as Father fixed her with a stern glare.

“This was not your fault. Marisa should have knocked as she knows is proper. Your failure came in not explaining what your daughter saw. She instead felt the urge to ask a little boy about it. She asked if his mother had hair there. Things progressed until the boy decided that he wanted to see if Marisa had any there. If you had been there for her, she would not have been violated by that little bastard.”

Mother was crying in terrified gasps, her eyes fixed on the whip in Father’s hands. Marisa followed her gaze and noticed for the first time that Father was bleeding from his left hand. There was a growing pool of blood on the floor at his feet. His knuckles were white and his hand was shaking.

“Remove your dress,” ordered Father.

Mother undid her dress and let it fall. She picked it up and hung it on the old butter churn that had belonged to Mamaw, God rest her soul. She stood covering herself as well as she could with one arm over her breasts and another over her privates. Marisa noticed a scattered few scars on her belly and legs. Marisa had never seen her mother naked before, and she turned away in shame.

“Marisa, you look at your mother. Mother, put your arms at your sides now.”

He walked toward her and held the butt of the whip against her mound.

“This is what the doctors call pubic hair. You will grow this very soon, I imagine. This is one of the signs that you are becoming a woman.”

He placed the thick leather handle slightly between her legs and bounced it back and forth on her thighs until she spread her legs.

“Between a woman’s legs is the place where you piss. You know this already. Someday, you will bleed from that place. This is one of the ways that women pay for the sins of Eve and for their own weakness as her descendants. When this happens, you will be able to make babies. Babies are made in that place and they are born from that place. This is painful because of that same sin. You should never let any boys or men touch you in that place unless you are bound in holy matrimony. If you do and you become with child, may God have mercy on your soul, because I will not. Do you understand everything so far?”

Marisa didn’t understand any of it. The idea of bleeding and pushing babies out of that place sounded worse that painful. She was horrified. What had she done to God to deserve that? What had her mother done to deserve that? What could any woman do to be forced to endure that sort of ghastly existence?

“Yes sir, I understand,” she said.

“Good. Now you have sinned, but against your will. You will not receive physical correction this time.”

Marisa relaxed. It was over. Mother was humiliated and exposed, but went unharmed as well.

“Mother, turn around,” said Father.

Mother was gulping for air as she turned. Marisa noticed for the first time that the scattered scars on the front of her body were nothing compared to the swatches on her back. Whole sections of her body bore evidence of burns and slashes starting at the shoulder blades and ending at her calves. He whole body shook with fear and she reached up for leather straps that hung from the rafters and fastened them about her wrists. Father placed a tooth-marked bit of wood in her mouth and bound it in with leather.

“Mother, on the other hand, almost led you to be defiled far before your time. She failed as a mother and thus needs to be punished severely.”

He let the end of the whip fall and Marisa saw the bloody tangled barbs that had been tied to it. Mother saw them over her shoulder as well and started to thrash and scream wild eyed as she tried to free herself.

-5-

Marisa awoke sprawled on the floor, her naked body numb from the cold of the tiles, but warmer than it had been in
years… decades…centuries…
a long time. Her eyes were still foggy, her hearing dulled. She tried to stand and stumbled back to the ground on all fours. Her joints creaked and cracked, the sound of rats chewing in the walls of her childhood home. Her skin crawled as she had a brief vision of rats chewing their way into her bones, building nests in the marrow.

She needed to feed more. She had been asleep
trapped… buried… aware…
and deprived of sustenance and her body was still in serious want of repairs.

She braced herself on the shiny metal table and struggled to her feet. Her legs shook, but remained under her. The stinging sensation of the rejuvenating muscles throughout her body had reduced to a minor annoyance. Her blood was sluggish to respond to her needs, but she willed strength to her legs and arms after a moment of intense effort. Her eyesight faltered even more, but at last she could walk.
She reached down and took the spectacles from body
"the man… the man who was going to cut me…"
on the floor. They were not powerful enough to fully restore her sight, but they helped her navigate better. She looked around at the room. Everything was smooth and metallic in a way that she had never seen before. There were what looked like metal cabinets all along one of the walls, arranged in perfect rows and columns. She crossed around the table that she had lay on earlier and reached out with a tentative hand toward the handle of one of the cabinets. There was a sheet-covered object within its depths, which she rolled out until it stopped. She pulled the sheet down slowly and gasped as she realized that a man had been enclosed in the stark sarcophagus in the wall.

She immediately felt a rush of terror. Had she been pulled out of the earth only to be enclosed in a metal coffin? Was this man one of her kind?
kind? what is my kind? whowhatwhere am i? i am marisa. what is marisa?

Had they finally been rounded up like cattle and imprisoned in a state of uneasy repose in metal boxes or was this some sort of macabre storage room for the truly dead? She could give the man some blood and find out if he could arise, but she barely had enough to keep herself upright. She needed to feed her ravaged body. She needed to find more blood…. blood… blood…

“Blood is the wine of the soul.”

She heard the voice as though it were everywhere. No, not everywhere… In her head, but tangible. She could almost taste the words, feel them slide through her head and into her very being. She loved the words. They had comforted her once upon a time, comforted her when she had been in the depths of desolation.

A noise from the hallway, perhaps a door slamming, jarred her from her reverie. Someone was coming. She was too slow yet to run and too weak to fight a ready opponent. She shambled over to her fresh kill. She had ripped his throat open in her need. The sight of such a blatant wound would raise an alarm. She would be found out and most likely sent to her final death, however that might be achieved. Either that, or imprisoned within the wall.

No, never again. She could not endure the languorous imprisonment from which she had so recently escaped. She bent over the man, placed her hands under him, and pushed.

-6-

Albert Lahee threw open the door at the end of the hall from the morgue. Laura had called him from her nurse’s station to let him know that Dr. Denisov was back in the hospital. The bastard was bound and determined to take all the glory for the autopsy of the Pennbrooke House woman. The old man was competent enough; he was likely a great coroner in his time. Unfortunately, he had begun to lose not only some of the manual dexterity of his youth, he had started to become paranoid and jealous of his territory like an ancient alpha wolf who knows that the pups are getting ready to harry him to the boneyard. His hands shook sometimes, usually depending on the importance of the autopsy. The Pennbrooke House woman was likely the most important find of Dr. Denisov’s career, thus his hands had shaken so much while disrobing the corpse that Albert had been forced to take over while the old man assisted.

Albert had gone over Max’s head to request the lead on the autopsy for fear that the elder coroner could damage the specimen. While it was true that this might be the most important autopsy of Dr. Max Denisov’s career, that career was coming to an end. Dr. Albert Lahee’s career was just starting and could gain a significant boost should he be able to publish a paper on their findings, and he could only be assured of doing that if he were the lead doctor on the case. No one wants to hear from the second banana.

It seemed that Max had been unwilling to wait on their superior’s decision and had snuck back in behind Albert’s back. He hated the shaky old curmudgeon in much the same way the he imagined the young wolves hated the worn out alphas who fought for dominance when they should just know when it was time to walk away from the pack. Max should have walked away from the job months ago; now he was going to slice huge zigzags into Albert’s future. He had to stop him before he could do any lasting damage to the cadaver.

Albert threw open the door and immediately felt stupid. Jarring the old man mid-incision could cause even more mutilation than his quaking hands. He started to reproach himself when he saw the shape on the floor. Max lay under the slab in a heap. The woman was on the table, untouched from what Albert could see from the doorway.

He hurried forward to check on Max. If he had suffered a heart attack or stroke, Albert could get him help. Falling in a hospital had its benefits, of course, dying in the morgue did too. He froze in front of the table. He looked over the cadaver, certain that it must be damaged in some way. It seemed unscathed. In fact, it seemed less emaciated than it had earlier. Albert forgot about the old man on the floor and walked around the table. The cadaver had been cleaned off and Albert could see that she had been a beautiful woman in life, still was in fact. He ran a hand along her abdomen, trying to find any sign of damage. He found none, so he worked his way along the sternum between her breasts. She was in pristine condition, as though she were freshly dead for not more than a day or two.

He studied her face and noticed a trail of blood trickling out of the corner of its mouth and down the opposite cheek. He leaned over to get a closer look when a hand clamped to the back of his neck. He started to struggle as the woman clamped onto his throat and almost succeeded. He was struck by the realization that, though he knew that she had pierced his skin, he was in no pain. His struggles slowed and he began to enjoy the attention. He began to doubt that she had bitten him at all, in fact. It felt more like a passionate kiss, like maybe he might have to wear his collar higher to hide the almost certain hickey. He began to moan against her and run his hands over her body, finally slumping to the floor with the woman slowly lowering along with him, finally straddling him and pressing her body against his as she drank the life from his veins.

-7-

“Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. Amen.”

Marisa remained on her knees and continued to pray silently, sweat beading on her face, running down her neck, between her breasts, and soaking into her nightgown. The tears ran down her face to the floor like twin waterfalls spilling water into a single lake. Her agony was a physical thing as much as spiritual. She had been rent apart on the inside and could feel the source of the pain trying to eat its way out of her body through her very soul.

She wiped her tears as the footsteps trudged up the stairs.

"Go to your room. Please don’t come in here.

Father stopped at Billy’s room. Marisa heard the door open and the footsteps stumble through the doorway. She heard the bed creak as weight was added to its frame. Voices, one slurred and husky and one drowsy and adolescent, drifted from the room. Another creak as weight was removed from the bed and the footsteps started again. They stopped in the hall,
"Please keep going across the hall. Don’t turn left."
then turned left, heading to Marisa’s room. She continued praying, head bowed, eyes closed, hands clenched into a single fist. The footsteps drew closer and a hand rested on her head. It stroked her hair and drew her sideways to its leg.

“Good girl. Keep up your prayers. We need as many as we can get now that Mother has gone home to be with the Lord.”

"Was sent home, you mean. She was sent home."

She wept against Father’s leg as he continued to stroke her hair gently. He sat down on her bed and cradled her head in his lap, rocketing back and forth as her misery spilled out. He leaned down and kissed her forehead and she caught a hint of moonshine on his breath as he exhaled. The drinking had started right after Mother had died
was killed
and had worsened over the course of the month. Father had begun finding more reasons than ever to punish his two children, especially Marisa. He was especially in the mood when the demon drink had its talons in him. Tonight, he seemed to be of a kinder mind, perhaps out of guilt.

Marisa needed the comforting and shoved all thoughts of Demon Father out of her mind and welcomed the attention of Saint Father. Saint Father was the man who comforted and supported his family with loving-kindness. He followed the laws of the Father and his ten great commandments. Demon Father’s version of the Bible differed greatly from Saint Father’s. Spare the rod and spoil the child was a favorite passage, one he used quite frequently.

Mother had stayed with Father because she was true to her word. She had promised God that she would love, honor, and obey as well as stay with him in sickness, in health, for richer, for poorer, for better, for worse, until death do they part. There had been a lot of the worse until her death had parted them. There had been moments in the months following Mother’s death when Marisa had hated her and envied her the release of death. Mother had endured all and had stayed true to her word until the day she died, never mind that keeping her word had led to her death.

Marisa had taken no such oath. God had no hold her save the commandment to honor her father and mother, so she stayed and tried to honor Father. She had wrestled with the exact meaning of “honor” in this context. She could rationalize that she could leave home, she was seventeen after all, and still honor him. In fact, it would likely be easier to honor him via letter from several states away. Perhaps she could honor him from the western frontier or somewhere in Mexico.

Father continued to stroke her hair and shoulders as he rocked her in his lap. She straightened up and looked into his eyes. They were bleary, but focused on her. She felt that there would be no anger tonight; he looked at her too longingly for any rage to be in his heart. She felt a wash of love for Father which she couldn’t account for. She had spent so long hating him for the things he had put them all though, but she remembered that he had not been Demon Father all her life. She remembered when he had been merely a man of faith who had never set foot in the church, but had education aplenty. He had read the Bible to them and had adhered to the New Testament’s ideas of love and peace.

Then Reverend Stokes had come to town. He had held a tent revival, followed swiftly be the building of the church. His hellfire and brimstone sermons had gained the attention of the community and had galvanized her father. He suddenly had seen sin around every corner and felt obligated as the man of the house to purge it. He had stopped reading the Bible and relied solely on Reverend Stokes to deliver him from sin. As she hugged onto Father’s leg, his knee pressed between her sweat and tear dampened breasts, she decided that this man, who could so lovingly stroke her hair, could never be a demon. He had been influenced by a devil in the guise of a preacher. She felt shame for ever having doubted Father.

She stood and took Father’s hands and helped him stand. She went to him and wrapped her arms around him. He returned the embrace and ran his fingers through her hair. He dropped kisses on her head and held her tighter. She pressed her body against his, as though her closeness to him might pull comfort from his very pores. He shifted and she felt a stiffness brush across her belly, sending a shock through her. She tried to back away, but he held her firm. He drunkenly slid his cheek down the side of her head until his whiskey lips brushed her ear.

“Mother, the kids are all down for the night and I feel the need.”

He pulled her nightgown up with one hand and cupped a breast in another. She choked on her scream and fell backward on the bed. Father started to follow her, but slipped in the pool of tears on the wooden floor. Marisa scrambled across the bed and crossed to the window as Father found his feet again. He cocked his head at her, like a confused dog. His mouth hung open waiting for the question that was milling about in his brain to find its way through the alcohol haze.

“What the hell are you doing in here, girl? Are you trying to sin against me, like Noah’s daughters who plied their father with drink and seduced him? You rub on me and act like you are the woman of this house to bewitch me?”

Marisa glanced at the doorway, gauging the likelihood that she could make it out the door, down the stairs, and out of the house before he could catch her. If she could make it out of the house, he could not catch her. Father, as though reading her mind, sidestepped to the doorway and around the foot of the bed.

“You little harlot. You have been staring with lasciviousness at the boys ever since you were a little girl. You couldn’t wait to grow up and wrap your legs around them over and over behind our backs. Oh yes, I know your kind. I lay with them before I met your mother. My brother and I both whored around the City of Satan before one of those French Quarter bitches killed him with some sickness that festered inside her.”

Marisa backed up into the corner shaking her head. She tried to tell him that she had been a good girl, like he had wanted, but her suddenly dry throat refused to utter more than a guttural groan of protest.

“You… You are no better than a common whore. You put your head on my leg and breathe on my manhood. You knew what you were doing. You rub those things on my knees and bring out the need. You confuse me with your witchcraft and make me think that you are my wife come to comfort me in my hour of darkest need and you think that you can just get away with it?”

He slid around the bedpost and edged closer to her. Insanity radiated from him. He would not be reasoned with. He was going to kill her. She leapt across the bed, but strong hands grabbed her ankles, pulling her back across the bed. Her legs were spread and Father threw himself onto her back and between them. She could smell his drunken breath as he rasped in her ear.

“No, no. You don’t get to leave yet. You started this, hussy. Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. That’s what the Book says. You have ensnared my mind with unholy lusts and tricked my senses. I have to send you to your judgment, but I will do it with a clear head. I will not do the Lord’s work with the need still burning in my loins.”

She twisted and thrashed under him as his fingers dug into the flesh of her waist. She bucked up and brought an elbow into his kidney. He let out a whoosh of stinking breath and let her go. She flipped over, gnashed her teeth, and brought a knee crashing into his groin. He let out a silent roar, rolled off the bed, and collapsed onto the floor. Marisa leapt through the door, slammed it shut, and ran into Billy’s room.

“Billy!” she shook him, “Billy, wake up! The house is on fire!”

-8-

Marisa threw her hair back from her face, shuddered with pleasure and pain, and opened her eyes. They were growing clearer, but still needed the spectacles. She retrieved them from beside the husk of the old man and placed them back onto her face. The lenses functioned much better; perhaps they were even too strong for her slowly rejuvenating eyes.

She contemplated her body with concern as her focus sharpened and the strength increased in her limbs. Her memory seemed much slower in resolving than she liked. She still had no recollection of how she had been buried or even who she was. She had the feeling that she was older than the eight or sixteen-year-old girl in her memories. The years that revolved around those memories were quickly coalescing. They seemed so immediate yet so distant at the same time, as though she had just lived through them but in another life.

Being unable to force her memories, she turned her attention to an issue that required her immediate attention; that of the two bodies on the floor and the shelves of bodies in the wall. She stepped over the more recently dead and retrieved the man she had been inspecting from the metal crypt. He laid in repose as before, unmoved. She bent over him and pulled his mouth open. She placed her open mouth over his, then willed a small portion of blood to pass between them as she kissed him. She licked her lips as she withdrew and awaited the ancient magic to awaken him. She wondered how she knew about such things. It was as though there was a second, hidden repository of information which she could not consciously access. It seemed wholly uninterested in her as a being, but on her as a… what?

She considered this for a moment, but let it flee in light of more pressing matters. The man was not responding to the blood as she had. He was truly dead, as were the two on the floor. What was it that made her able to survive by drinking blood? What gave her this power to repair herself, to control the very lifeblood of her body as she wished? Whatever the answer, she knew she could not leave the evidence of her actions on the floor in a heap. She felt that she had disposed of bodies before, but was uncertain how it could be accomplished.

She could simply place them in a cabinet with the rest of the dead, but then there were the bite marks. That secret part of her that was holding information from her except in spurts and drips was cautioning her that such an obvious wound could lead the hunters to her. She would have to do better than merely hiding them. She thought back to what the men had been planning on doing to her. She had heard their thoughts, though not in full and perfect sentences, and knew that they were going to
Dissect, vivisect, anatomize…
cut her open.

She reached down and grabbed the lighter, younger man by the hair and pants. She hefted him onto the table. She picked up a scalpel on the doctor’s tray, considered the bone saw, and turned back to the body’s left wrist. She smiled at the irony. These two men were going to cut into her, were going to hurt her, in this macabre torture chamber. Now, she was planning on doing the same to them. They had received the mercy of a painless death before they were dismembered, which was more benefit than they had been planning on giving her.

She dove into her work in a frenzy and suddenly found herself unaccountably ill. She knew that she was a killer, she had killed these two as though it were old hat. Still, the Kiss was a sensuous thing, while this was more feral. She felt that she had done a thing like this before. The idea had sprung upon her with such obvious clarity. Nevertheless, a wave of shame and nausea washed over her as the teeth of the saw gnawed on the old man’s wrist.

The work took an eternity, and the horror of it never lessened. There had been only a minimal amount of blood, which had drained down the sluices at the sides of the table. She had to admire the efficiency of the setup. No muss, no fuss. At last, she was left with a pile of limbs and two torsos with their heads attached. She had studiously avoided beheading them. She had known that it would prove the most significant challenge of the process. Unfortunately, it was necessary. In fact, removal of the head was the whole reason she had begun this.

She laid the saw blade across the rip she had made the younger man’s throat. She bared down on the handle and pulled. Tears streamed down her face for the first time in the whole process and she dropped the saw as she fell to her knees. Her whole body wracked with sobs, she lay down on the floor. What was she that made actions like this necessary?

She knew that she was a vampire. She had pulled the word from the young ones head. He had actually been enamored of being Kissed by one of her kind. He had read books about how pleasant it could be. The thought made her shudder even now. He had died before she could glean any more info from him before her own memories had overwhelmed her as they rushed back into her head. Memories of pain. Memories of terror. Memories of Father
"a man"
trying to harm her. Memories of wanting to hurt him back. Memories of her weakness making her a slave to his will for so many years, until he finally decided that she was ripe enough to pick.

The thought spurred her to furious action. She had been a pathetic little girl then, but her power was quickly returning to her. No one would freely hurt her again. She would make them all pay in blood. She turned, placed the saw on the wound, and ripped through the throat and spine, removing the head in three swipes of the blade. She did the same to the older man, roaring deep in her throat all the while.

She dropped the saw, panting. She surveyed her work and was sickened, yet pleased that the telltale bite marks had been obscured by the frenzied ripping of the saw. She searched through the cabinets and found a large volume of alcohol and hydrochloric acid. She dumped the acid on the body parts. While they slowly began disintegrating, she began dumping all of the alcohol around the room, making especially certain to hit anything that would burn well.

The realization hit her that she had no way of making fire. There were no candles and no lamps. The lights were above her, flickering in some sort of glass. She climbed up on the table, careful to avoid the pools of acid. She ripped off the clear encasement and broke the source of the sickly light. It popped, splintered, and showered her with glass, but no fire.

She started to panic and ran to the chair where she had left the men’s clothes. She rummaged through their pockets, finding wallets, keys, and a pack of cigarettes with a metal case inside. She removed the case and opened it. There was a mechanism inside which, upon closer inspection, included what looked like a wick and a metal wheel. She placed the device under her nose and inhaled the sweet smell of something pungent and, she hoped, flammable.

She cleaned as much of the blood from her body as she could and dressed in the smaller set of clothes. She looked down at herself and quietly hoped she would not draw too much attention dressed in pants and a white coat. She would have to keep to the shadows and alleys until she could become more appropriately attired.

She turned her attention back to the device. She placed her thumb on the wheel and slowly rolled it. There was a small spark and the wheel ran across what she assumed was a small bit of flint. She smiled and turned it around in her hand, with the lid hanging open. She placed her thumb back on the wheel and turned it harder. A more significant series of sparks flew within the chamber. Her heart sped up and she became unsure of the things purpose. She gave the wheel a swift flick and a flame came to life in the wick casing.

She opened the door and looked out into the hallway. The hallway was completely empty except for some carts with linens on them and a series of doors. She lit a sheet which she had doused in alcohol. She tossed it into the room and watched for a moment as the fire started to spread.

“Billy, wake up! The house is on fire!”

She closed the metal match, stared at it in her shaking hand, and placed it in her pocket. Then she hurried down the hallway.

She found a door that read “STAIRS” and went through. She climbed up to the next level and opened the door there. There were people hurrying about or sitting in chairs behind desks. Some were men, but more than a few were women. All of them wore pants and either white jackets or colored smocks. She retreated back into the stairwell.

There was an axe encased in metal and glass. She regarded the axe for a moment, thought of the carnage burning below, then studied her reflection in the glass. She had been cleaned up nicely and some color was starting to come back into her cheeks. Her hair, though clean, was flying wild. She ran her fingers through the tangled mop, straightening it as much as she could. Then she wrapped her hair in an untidy bun, smoothed her clothes, and walked out into the world.