Red Kiss

I smelled her coming before I ever heard the click of her black flats on the metal floor. The sent of her blood was so strong it woke me up. I sat up in one fluid movement and looked around my cell in a rather lazy manner. Something had changed. Something was different, my mouth was so dry. I stood and looked down at the bed. The white sheets were stained pink in the shape of my body. Her sent grew stronger and I knew exactly what she carried with her by the sent. She had a syringe of that vial medicine that would paralyze me in the left pocket of her lab coat. In her hands she carried two bags full of warm fresh blood. Somehow that blood didn’t interest me. My whole body was responding to the call of her pulse. I stood in a daze leaning against the wall. This wasn’t the tide. This was something different… something worse. I was far too aware of myself.

The door slid open and she stood in the door just as I had smelled. Two warm packages of blood loosely held in her hands. She glanced at the bed and suddenly the look on that beautiful face of hers went from placid to terrified. She went to back up and the door closed behind her, her pulse quickened. I felt the rhythm of her heart change. She was dressed as she always had been in the lab. A sensible black dress shirt and a charcoal grey pencil skirt under her white lab coat. That long black hair of her was pulled up into a bun. It left her neck perfectly exposed, that quickened pulse of hers exposed in perfect view of my hungry eyes. She swallowed hard. When I pushed off from the wall she jumped and took a step back. Her eyes kept going to the bed, the pink stain. She shook her head and held out the packages of blood to me.

“Here, it should put the hunger at bay,” her voice came out a lot calmer than the look on her face. “I talked the techs into giving me two,” she smiled weakly, and I smiled ruefully.

“It’s passed hunger,” I started walking forwards slowly, she started nodding. She was like a frightened gazelle that was trapped by a lion. All the predator in me wanted to do was quiet the rapid thudding pound of her heart “It’s at thirst,” it was strange but I knew what she was going to do before she did it. She reached in her pocket. I darted forward and grabbed her wrist, she dropped the bags of blood. I reached in her pocket and took out the syringe. I broke it in half and tossed it into the corner.

Holding her wrist as I was I could feel her pulse like some living breathing thing that wanted nothing more than to be free. I had to fight against it as I pushed her wrist away. She took a step back. I grabbed the bags of blood off of the floor and opened one. Just the smell of it made my eyes roll back into my head and my whole body shudder. I tipped the bag and let the cooling blood fill my mouth, it wasn’t the same as fresh blood. It had a different taste. However simply drinking the blood brought me to my knees. I was drinking sloppily I knew there was blood all around my mouth. I tossed the emptied bag away and held the other in my hand. The floor had cooled it significantly. I saw a quick movement and looked up. She had taken her hair down hiding her throat from view. I moved back so I sat against the door and opened the other bag of blood. I drank it greedily, the taste was worse than the last one, most of it spilled out of my mouth and down my chin onto my simple black scrub shirt. I tossed the empty bag to the side and wiped all the extra blood from my mouth with my hand. I stared at my hand for a moment before I licked my hand clean. She was hiding in the corner, trapped between the bed and the wall. I licked my lips and stared at her.

My thirst was far from quenched, I slowly started to walk towards her, when I was close she tried to run for the door. I grabbed her hand and stopped her. I don’t know how it happened but somehow I ended up pinning her against me and I wound my hand in her hair stretching her neck to the side, I was hypnotized by the pulse of the vein. I just stared at it as she struggled against me. She whimpered as I leaned forward with my fangs sharp and my mouth open for the strike. She jumped when she felt my hot breath against her skin. That was what shook me from my hypnotized state, the small sudden burst of movement I pushed her away from me.

“Get the fuck away from me” I scream as I ran and hid in the corner. She stood by the door visibly shaking. She shook her head and took a deep breath.

“I have to tend you today… I will be right back, with more blood and… fresh linen and… a clean uniform,” she said as she waved her small key card in front of the door. It slid open and I watched as she left and the door slammed behind her. I shook my head and brought my knees to my chest. After a moment of staring at the wall I rested my head against my knees and tried to clear my mind. It didn’t work, all I could focus on was the scent of blood. It was everywhere. I took my shirt off and wiped my neck with it and tossed it across the room. I ran my tongue over my teeth, my fangs were still sharpened. I sighed heavily and stood as I scented two pulses walking down the corridor. One was strange, there was something wrong with it. I could hear it as they got closer, it as painfully slow. When the door opened I looked to find Desdemona pushing someone in a wheel chair in to the room. Their eyes were vacant, staring ever forward into blankness. Their eyes were almond shaped like Desdemona’s but they weren’t blue like hers they were violet. This small woman who was in the wheel chair with her head shaved. She wore a hospital gown. She was restrained to the wheel chair. In this woman’s lap was a bag filled with linens. It took me a moment to realize that Desdemona looked sick.

“She’s a gift from Dr. Chase,” her jaw clenched as she made her way over to the bed with the bag. She took a deep breath, “He says that you can drain her dry if you wish and that you will find her blood exceptionally sweet,” she shook her head as she peel the stained pink sheets off of the cot and tossed them on the floor. I looked at her for a moment as she changed the sheets. I slowly made my way warily over to the woman in the wheel chair. I knelt in front of her, stared into those violet eyes and then the slow seductive beat of her heart drew me in and I found myself hypnotized again. I licked the pulse just feeling it under my tongue made my eyes roll back in my head and my throat grow tight. I pulled her head to the side and sank my fangs into her neck. I near to swooned as her blood filled my mouth. Simply tasting it made my chest tight. I pressed my mouth all the more firmly to the wound I had made and Swallowed again and again. I didn’t want it to end. I felt the thirst slowly fade and become nothing more than a hunger. I still had the heightened sense of myself however. I worked my tongue over the wound I had made lapping at the blood, after a moment I felt the string of her life growing taught. It was almost like my fangs were the scissors of which to cut that thread. I threw myself back from her. The simply taste of her hot blood in my mouth made me want to go back for more, to latch myself on and suck her down into the pit of death.

There was a moment before I was able to put two and two together. Perhaps it had a lot to do with the fact that I was swooning from her near to intoxicating blood. Or maybe it was the shock of being so near to sated for the first time in months. It took me a moment to remember what Sam had said about Desdemona. Her blood was like candy to vampires. I looked back at the woman in the wheel chair, her heart was still beating. I looked at Desdemona who was putting a pillow on my bed. She put a set of black scrubs on the bed. Before she went about retrieving the dirty linen and the shirt I had tossed across the room. Her jaw was still clenched. She was walking a thin line now, and she knew it.

“My name’s Akira,” I said as she turned around and looked at the poor woman. I suddenly felt guilty. She nodded.

“Akira… 568 It doesn’t matter what I call you,” she snapped as she held the bag loosely in her left hand.

“Why?”

“Because it’s only a matter of time before that’s me,” she pointed to the woman in the wheel chair. She shook her head and took a deep breath before setting the bag back on the woman’s lap. She took a gauze bandage out from her pocket and pressed it to the sloppy wound I had made.

“That won’t happen to you” I said as I stepped towards her. She shook her head.

“All it will take is a blood test…. I’m resigning,” she said as she crossed her arms, “I’m going to pledge myself to council, at least they won’t kill me, they’ll only bleed me once a month… I can live with that,” she nodded a little and pulled her hair back into a bun again. “I need you to change,” I looked at her for a moment and raised my eyebrows. “I am a scientist, it’s nothing I haven’t seen before,” I turned away from her and walked over to the faucet and turned the water on. I took the pants off and threw them at her. She caught them and stuffed them in the bag and then took out a towel and held it as I rinsed the blood from my face. And looked back at her, our eyes locked and I could feel the lust radiating off of her. She shook her head and closed her eyes for a moment.

“I am going to miss you… you’re the only person who’s been nice to me since I got here,” I said as I turned the water off she looked back and me and her eyes gazed over my naked body. I smiled and walked over to her and took the towel from her and wrapped it around my waist. Standing this close to her made me realize just how small she was. She was positively tiny, I was only around six feet tall and she was near to a foot shorter than I was. I leaned in and gently kissed her lips, she didn’t protest. So I kissed her again, this time I let my mouth open and my tongue search her mouth. She quickly pulled away and covered her mouth. She shook her head.

“I can’t do this anymore,” she said as she shook her head “I can’t… I can’t do this again,” she turned away from me. “I look at you… and… I see Ruki... I fell in love with him the same way… and I’m not letting it happen again I’m sorry Akira,” She turned back around and faced me, there was a tear in the corner of her eye.

“You don’t mean it,” I said softly as I kissed her cheek I rested my hands on her shoulders as my mouth found hers again. After a few moments of resting my hands noncommittal on her shoulder I slowly wrapped my arms around her pressing our bodies closer together. Our kisses became more and more frantic. I pulled back a little and kissed her cheek. I cupped her face in my hands and looked into her eyes, the blue was almost as bright and clear as mine. “Let me drink from you,” I whispered before I laid a soft kiss on her neck, right above the pulse. I ran my tongue over the throbbing vein, she shuddered. I looked at her neck, she had no scars. I looked at the other side as I laid a flurry of kisses across it. Still no scars, I gently nipped at the skin and her breath caught. I laughed. “Please let my drink from you,” I wanted desperately to have my fangs be the first to mark her, the thought of it made me shudder. She shook her head and pulled away.

“I’m sorry,” she placed her hand on my chest and furrowed her brows. She gathered the things and pushed the wheel chair out of the room. She hesitated in the door way and looked back at me before she sighed and finished walking away.

It was odd. Minutes after she left the door was slid open again. I was still in my towel. There were several orderlies. And Doctor Chase stood in the middle of them with a smile on his face. The orderlies had syringes in their hands.

“568… I hope you enjoyed my gift; it is very hard to find a wine blood that the vampires haven’t given their protection to,” he laughed “… it’s because of this that I have had a theory for a very long time” the graying man said with a grin “and today I get to test that theory,” the orderlies moved towards me quickly and grabbed my arms and jammed the needles into me. It was then that someone walked into the room.

He was a lifeless one, he was short, almost the same height as Desdemona maybe an inch taller. His blonde hair was dyed black and pink but you could tell what he was by the power that spilled off of him. His hair was spiked and he wore a black pinstriped suit. He was as slender and as pale as I was. But there was something behind his eyes, something that I didn’t quite like. Something that terrified me. He smiled as my body went slack from the drug. He crossed his arms.

“I told you what to do… now it’s your turn to deliver. Where is she?” his voice was deeper than I would have expected and his accent was thick. He was very clearly Japanese.

“If this works I will tell you all you need to know to find her,” Dr. Chase spoke as he looked at the man out of the corner of his eye as the orderlies strapped me into a stretcher.

“It will only work if it’s something he desires, if it isn’t it won’t I told you already,” His iris’ bled to red easily, he had embraced the tide “Where is she and keep in mind your pathetic little drugs won’t work on me,” Dr. Chase shook his head and took a piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it to the man.

“Her address as promised, Ruki” Dr. Chase said as Ruki snatched the paper away. So that was her Ruki, he held the piece of paper loosely in his hand before he turned to leave.

“Pleasure doing business with you, Dr. Chase,” he spoke softly before he left the room, followed by the doctors and the Orderlies who pushed my stretcher along. Ruki paused mid-step and faced the doctor. “Remember, blood, pleasure and desire, any other way and it won’t work… also I wouldn’t suggest it if he’s started seeping blood, you won’t be able to control him if he has,” His eyes were a bright pale blue almost a white. “You’ll just end up with something like me… only a lot more pissed off,” it was then that he walked away. The doctor stared after him for a moment and looked at me and shook his head before waving the orderlies on.

They took me to a new lab I hadn’t seen before, the ceiling was higher than the other room and the walls were white. The orderlies unstrapped me and pulled the towel off of me exposing my body. They laid me down on a cold metal table in the middle of the room and restrained me again. This time with far more restraints than before, six on each arm ten on each leg and three around my waist. There was even a strap for my neck and forehead also one for around my shoulders it almost looked like a harness. I felt the drugs start to wear off as someone hit a button somewhere and the table flipped so it held me up. There were many nurses milling about and there were far more machines in this room than in the other. I looked around and found it difficult to turn my head.

Beside me on a table laid the woman from the wheel chair she was strapped almost like I was only her arms were above her head and she was flipped upside down so that her hands almost brushed the floor. Connected to her arm was a tube that was inserted in one of her veins. At the end of the tube was a mask, one of the nurses walked over to me and strapped the mask around my mouth and nose. The mask aspirated the blood so that with every single breath I got a taste of the metallic sweetness.

My body tensed with a sudden unexpected pain as I felt a needle pierce the flesh at the back of my neck. I strained against the restraints to no avail. I could feel the cold needle simply rest their inside of my flesh. Nurses went about sticking electrodes about my body, over my heart, at my temples on my stomach and one right on my femoral artery. A nurse came over with a tray of syringes that were filled with various liquids. She didn’t even prep my vein she just stuck them in and pressed the depressor until the foreign substance was gone. After a moment a dull pain started at the base of my spine.

The pain grew, and as it grew my body started to shake convulsively. Dr Chase stood in front of me and laughed. Every muscle in my body grew painfully tight and I couldn’t take it anymore, so I screamed. It was the scream that had apparently told the good Doctor that I was ready because he motioned to a nurse who placed a net visor over my eyes. I only felt the cool metal on my skin for a moment before the doctor nodded to a tech seated at a computer and I felt the needle in my neck plunge in deeper and the small optic fibers wrap themselves around my spinal cord. Then it was like it always was.

Nothingness. It always started with the sudden nothingness, no feeling no sight just white bright light and then slowly but surely you would feel your senses come to you. After a moment I found myself standing in a dark room with metal walls. The only things in the room were a desk and a chair which was facing away. I walked my way over to the desk and the chair swirled around to reveal Ruki sitting there with a self satisfied smile on his face, His eyes were different than before, one was their natural white blue and one was blood read. He looked off to the side.

“Do you want the key?” his deep voice echoed in my mind as his eyes kept looking to the side. He held a key up in his hand. Something inside of me wanted to take the key.

“No,” I made myself say as I looked down at myself. I was wearing street clothes, clothes I would have worn before this whole ordeal. A white shirt with black writing on it and tight black jeans. I reached up and touched my hair it was styled as it had been the day I was taken. I looked at Ruki again, he was looking in the other direction and his hands were folded neatly on the desk. His nails were painted with black lacquer, and that was all I could focus on for some reason. I forced myself to look at him, he was staring at me. His one normal eye was ringed with red now and his face went from placid to a wicked grin in an instant.

“Fine,” his lips never moved, I looked down at his hands again and found a manila envelope in them. He opened it and glanced at it before looking at me. His smile dropped instantly. “You want her,” his voice echoed in my mind, “You desire… desire her,” the voice echoed from one side and then the other. His voice sounded angry. I looked at his eyes, they were both red now. “Do you want the key?” his spoke. His voice sounded vile and sinister. I glanced his teeth as he spoke, his fangs were long and sharp. I had never seen another of my kind smile so openly before.

“What is the key for,” I asked as I watched his eyes and rested my hand on the desk. I caught his smile and then the bright glint of steel as he pulled a large knife out of nowhere and stabbed it through my hand. The pain was almost as bad as the drugs earlier.

“You don’t get to know,” He stood and the chair disappeared, “This” he spun around and gestured to the room that was no longer a small room but rather a vast hall still with dark metal walls and dark floor. The lights hanging from the ceiling were bare bulb. He stood in front of me and I looked at him again. He looked different, there was thick dark eyeliner around his eyes and his lips were painted black and red. He wore a long jacket that had tails and a black shirt with a large dipping collar, the shirt was so long it almost hung to his knees, his pants were still black pinstripe but now they were tighter and he wore black platform boots that climbed to his knees and made him close to my height. “Is my domain,” his voice echoed in my mind as he sat on the desk and looked at the small pool of blood that was forming around my hand. He smiled again baring those terrible fangs and he pulled the knife out. “I’ll ask again… do you want the key… key? Key?” the last word echoed over and over again as though it was said by many different voices. He stood with his back to me. After a moment he turned back around and he had a tattoo that climbed his neck it was a dragon. I had to think about it as I stared at the bright silver skeleton key in his hand. I looked down at my hand and found it healed. “I already know you want her…” the word her was accompanied by a flash of Desdemona with her hair down cascading over bare shoulders. “But do you want the key?”

“What’s the key to?” I asked as I watched him, he smiled instantly again in such a way that unnerved me. I saw the glint of steel again. This time he knocked me to the ground and straddled me pinning my shoulders with his feet he took the knife stabbed me in the stomach. I screamed as he sliced my abdomen open and my blood flowed freely on to the floor. The knife disappeared as easily as it had appeared and he shoved his hand inside of my wound. His laugh echoed from nowhere as he fished around inside of my chest and I screamed as I felt him brush every single one of my organs. I suddenly tasted blood in my mouth as he pulled something out. He grinned as he pulled my heart out and I coughed up blood. He looked at it for a moment before he licked it and smiled at me. “The key is to a door,” he spoke as he inspected my still heart and my blood simply drained out of me, though I didn’t grow cold or start to die. I was already dead, my body hadn’t been alive for three years. “Do you want the key?” he asked as he placed my heart back in my chest and leaned forward. I looked into his eyes. The next thing I knew I wasn’t on the ground anymore and he was standing in front of me. I felt my chest and found it whole I looked down at the shirt and found it still white. He grinned and turned around.

“Yes I want the key,” I said softly as I looked at him he slowly turned around and held the silver skeleton key out to me again. I snatched it from him quickly. He leaned in and kissed me full on the mouth. His kiss tasted like death, blood, burnt flesh and decay. It was then that I remembered what Desdemona had said about him. They had burned him to death. When he pulled back he looked the same as he did the moment before.

“You can’t kill something that’s already dead,”

“So you’re really here then.” I spoke softly as I looked at him he laughed.

“Yes,”

“So they have you?”

“No,” he laughed.

“Then how?”

“Lets just say… you get certain gifts when you can control the tide,” his voice echoed in my mind “Some that seem more like curses,” he frowned and shook his head. “Just remember… we are creatures of death, blood and desire,” the last word he said echoed through my mind. I focused on it for some reason and when I looked around he was gone and I was left standing in the empty dark hall with the key in my hand.

My footsteps echoed down the hall as I walked. The echo started before my feet hit the floor. It was almost as though they lead me. I walked down the vast endless hall for what seemed like hours and hours it was long enough to make me forget that this wasn’t real. That this was nothing more than a net dream my subconscious connecting with someone else’s.

Speaking of someone else there was an abrupt corner and Ruki stepped out from the corner dress as he was when he went fishing for my heart only he wasn’t wearing his shoes and from his mouth leaked a black substance that looked and smelled like diseased blood. His hands were still dark with my blood only the dried blood seemed darker than it should have been black almost. He leaned against the nearest door and smiled.

“Give me the key,” his voice echoed in my mind as he held out his hand. I handed him the key and closed his hand around it and then opened it slowly. The key was replaced by a piece of paper I looked down at the piece of paper longer than I should have and when I looked up I wasn’t in the dark hall anymore. I was in what looked like the hallway of an expensive hotel. Ruki looked different as he walked away his hair was blonde and his pants were gold.

Compulsion drew me to the door in front of me and I no longer knew why I had been standing outside of my room. I shook my head and opened the door to the room and walked in closing the door behind me. The room was huge, and lavish. The carpet what thick and plush, a deep red. The wall paper was also red with a small gold delicate design on it. The curtains on the far wall were gold with same patter on the walls only in red. The bed was against the wall on top of the bed was a golden comforter with a cream design on it. There was a large crystal chandelier in the middle of the room. The room was lit by candles and on top of that golden bed spread was Desdemona. She was dressed in a simply black satin robe, her long black curls brushed the bed as she sat up and beckoned me to her. Her eyes seemed far brighter than before.

Those eyes captivated me they weren’t just blue they were cerulean. I knelt beside her on the bed and kissed her full lips softly. I could hear her pulse whispering in my head. Indecipherable babbling in the back of my mind as my lips played across hers gently at first and then hard. I was met kiss by kiss. She licked my top lip and it was all that was needed to quicken my pulse and my desire for her. I pulled her close as I laid soft kisses on her neck feeling the pulse beat against my lips softly.

The feeling of her warm body against mine was simply intoxicating. She pulled my shirt off and ran her small hands over my chest. She straddled me and I leaned back and let her grind her hips against mine as she slowly let the robe slide off of her shoulders exposing all of her near bronze skin to my eager eyes. I placed my hands on her thighs and slowly savored her soft skin. The feeling was almost too much I smiled as I felt my heart’s rhythm match hers. I also felt it. I didn’t know what it was, but it was there in the back of my mind. Worry crossed my mind as she leaned forwards and started laying soft kisses and gentle bites across my flesh. There was something I wasn’t suppose to let happen.

All thought left my mind as she bit my left nipple hard. My back arched and I moaned letting my eyes roll back in my head I fully embraced the feeling, the beautiful warm pain. I felt my fangs press against my bottom lip. I smiled as I sat up and flipped her over. I pulled her head to the side to stretch her neck. I kissed her pulse that beat there, she quivered as I gently closed my teeth around it. I released her only long enough to remove my pants.

“please.. please drink from me,” she begged as I crawled over her and looked into those eyes for a moment before I roughly pulled her to me as I pierced her in more ways than one. The feeling was exquisite. The taste of her warm fresh blood was heavenly as was the feeling of her tight wet depths around me.

As I felt the pleasure build I felt it again, like a heavy pressure threatening to close in around me as my heart beat sped up as I pressed my mouth all the more firmly to her throat as I thrust into her. Something happened. It was like a great wave crashed into me. I screamed as it tore through me threatening to rip me apart.

I screamed as the pain devoured me forcing my eyes open, forcing me out of the net dream still screaming. My body was spasming as though it wanted to tear itself apart. My eyes rolled back in my head as I got hit with another wave that made me strain against the restraints. Over my screaming Dr. Chase’s laughter could be heard. I started struggling against the restraints. I through my weight forward as another spasm ripped through my body and the restraints gave and I went hurdling to the ground still screaming still convulsing.

The staff scattered and the orderlies went for their syringes after the spasming had died down. The pain slowly subsided and I stopped screaming. I was weak from it, but my body felt oddly light as I slowly brought myself to my feet. I swayed and caught myself on one of the restraints I had broken. It took a moment for me to realize that I had ripped through woven metal. I felt my fangs grow and brush my bottom lip as an orderly rushed at me. I smiled and somehow managed to grab his wrist and break it by simply flicking my own. The syringe felt out of his limp hand I grabbed his hair and yanked his head to the side and went for his neck like viper. I knew in that moment what lack of control was as the blood filled my mouth all I could think of was the sweet taste of it, and it’s comforting warmth. I drank until I heard his heart slow. It was then that I pulled away and looked him in the eyes as I ripped out his throat and laughed.

I turned around as the other orderlies all jumped me at once and stabbed me with their syringes. At first I didn’t feel it. The numbness was dull first, then it slowly started to spread until it was all consuming, and I was simply numb. It was then that Ruki appeared in the door dressed the same as he was in the net dream. I heard his voice in my head echoing.

“Weak pathetic child,” he smiled and before I could blink he was holding me more firmly than any restraint could. He wrenched my head to the side to elongate my neck and then he struck I felt his teeth cut into me. It wasn’t just a bite. He didn’t drink of me he just let my blood flow on to the floor. I struggled against him but it was hopeless, the much smaller man was far stronger than I was even with the tide crashing through me as it was. After what seemed like hours the paralyzing drug started to take effect and he let me drop like a stone to the ground. “You might want to keep him starved for a while… you’ll want to study him when the thirst sets upon him… it’s interesting,” Ruki spoke with a grin as Dr. Chase nodded looking at me on the floor. “The drugs will only work on him when he’s almost completely drained when he’s in this state… you might want to keep that in mind next time too”

“Will you be bringing us another wine blood?” the good doctor spoke as the orderlies picked up my limp body and strapped me into the stretcher. Ruki laughed.

“If my loving Katherine is in a good mood I don’t see why not,” He turned around and left the room. How long had I been out for? The orderlies pushed me back to my room. They left me restrained on the stretcher and locked the door, immobile and staring at the ceiling.