Aradnia, Vampire

Aradnia gazed out into the night, into the deep shadows, and saw shades of black and purple, the colors of evening.  These shadows held secrets, terrors of things unseen and things that might be. Aradnia smiled, for she was, in her own perverse way, intimate with these shadows.  She stood six foot two, weighed one hundred seventy pounds.  Aradnia, immortal, clad in fabrics and shoes of ebon black.  Her long coat, form-fitting, hung down to her hips; her black leather skirt, tight, clung to her and accentuated a full and sensuous body.  Her hair, dyed black, was cut short, toughening an otherwise feminine facial beauty.  Aradnia's face, long, full, features sharp like a knife, her pursed red lips painted the color of blood.  Her white vampiric teeth, over an inch long, contained beneath pursed red lips.  Her hands, delicate with red fingernails, yet immensely strong, could be used to bring pleasure or to destroy.  Aradnia 's eyes, black tinged with red.  She stood by the window in the antique room with its dust-covered furniture, drab white walls, its cobwebs which adhered to almost every surface.  Behind Aradnia sat the decaying corpse of a young brown-haired woman bound to a wooden chair.  The corpse wore a rotting dress of black.  The young woman, now little more that a withered shell, was tied to the chair with white cord.  A white gag had been bound around the woman's mouth.  Aradnia had murdered the woman weeks before, abducting her, then ripping open her throat and drinking the spurting blood to quench and satisfy a blood lust Aradnia acquired fifty-six years before.  Other fluids from the woman's body Aradnia had drained by means of a mortician's pump and a long hose.                                 
                                     
Behind Aradnia, tied to another antique wooden chair, sat a young woman of twenty-four, nearly tall as Aradnia, thin, emaciated, drained of much blood, but not yet dead.  The woman, garbed in Goth black skirt, black sleeveless top, black boots. Her long hair, dyed ebon black, hung past her shoulders.  Her face painted in garish colors, chalk-white skin, lips shaded black.  Strong white cord bound her to the chair, limiting her movement.  Lifting her head up weakly, she looked at Aradnia and tried to speak.  Smiling, Aradnia walked to a small table upon which rested a wooden box filled with tools and implements of torture and torment.  Aradnia reached into the box with delicate, deadly fingers, withdrew a three-inch long, silver needle threaded with strong black thread, approached the helpless woman, grasped the woman's hair, and yanked the woman's head up till her gaze met that of Aradnia.  "You must be silent, Rebecca," she told the woman, in a voice of stern intent.                                      
                                     
With the thumb and forefinger of her left hand, Aradnia pinched the woman's lips closed, and began sewing the lips shut.  The young woman screamed a muted scream and squirmed in a futile effort to free herself.  "Now, now, be still," Aradnia spoke in a voice both soothing and venomous.  Blood from the woman's lips began dripping down the fingers of Aradnia's right hand as Aradnia went on with the sewing.  Stitch-by-stitch, she wove the lips together, like a black widow spider trapping its victim in a tightening web.  Sixteen stitches to bind Rebecca's lips, sealing the bloody mouth shut.  The subtle and delicate beauty of the young woman's face began to twist and distort from the effects of the torture.  She uttered a groan as the torture continued and tears ran down her cheeks.  Crimson blood ran down the woman's chin and dripped upon her neck, a neck which already bore the two scars of Aradnia's vampire bite.  Droplets of blood fell upon the woman's black clothing.  The young woman's eyes, deep blue, stared in horror and abject fear.  Aradnia noticed, not for the first time, the black bat and vampire skull tattoos on the woman's arms and breasts.                                      
                                     
Thin streaks of blood ran down the victim's throat from her sewn mouth.  Aradnia leaned down to the woman's neck and began licking the fresh blood.  Aradnia, her pointed fangs exposed, ran her tongue along the woman's neck, her chest, greedily lapping up the scarlet rivers like the sweetest wine, an indulgence whose flavor was metallic, yet full.  "Blood is so sweet," Aradnia whispered, her voice soft and deadly, "so sweet."  As the woman wept and struggled in vain against her bonds, a tall gaunt man of chalky complexion stepped forward from the shadows behind the woman's chair.  Two inches taller than Aradnia, about Rebecca's age, he also wore black, the most striking feature of which was the thick-woven black jacket trimmed with silver rings and buckles, a Goth-culture style of jacket of elaborate weave, with wide flaring shoulders and cuffs reminiscent of clothing worn by Mariylin Manson.
 
The man's dark hair hung down, partially obscuring his face, a narrow face whose facial expressions were fixed and immobile.  He was Draven, one of Aradnia's servants, another victim of Aradnia's vampirism, who though part vampire, was still far less powerful than his vampire mistress.  He leaned down to the bound woman, hoping to indulge in the blood drinking.  He sank clawed fingers into the woman's throat, began touching his fangs to her neck.  "No!" Aradnia shouted, "She's mine!"  Aradnia , whose power was that of ten men, clutched  Draven by the back of his neck, yanked him off the woman, and flung him sharply to the right across the room, sending him crashing into a high wooden cabinet.  He sank down.  "Fool!" Aradnia shouted.  "let me finish with her or I will destroy you."  Aradnia turned to face her victim again, saying "Don't cry, Rebecca; it will be over soon.  You wanted to be immortal, and soon you will be."  The woman's eyes showed terror as Aradnia approached, bent down, resumed blood drinking.  While this horror unfolded, the room in which it transpired almost seemed to be watching and listening to the ghastly scene.  Eerie shadows in the room changed shape and dimension, and angle over and again.  Thus creating a weird supernatural geometry born of witchcraft, a geometry of sharp 90 degree and slanted angles, and wavering lines that made the cobwebbed room appear out of proportion.                                      
                                     
Shadow creatures and ghosts lurked in the corners of the room, witnessing the macabre blood-drinking scene playing out before them, yet unable to intervene because the powers of the vampiress held them at bay. The ghastly happenings in the room were illuminated by bare light-bulbs hanging from the ceiling, the faint light making the room and its occupants yet more macabre.  The room was situated on the second floor of a mansion which had, in its day, been a model of grand 19th century Victorian architecture, with slanting gabled roofs and solid red-brick design.  Now the mansion was decayed, neglected, and given over to a purpose that was nothing less than Satanic. Aradnia knew the purpose well, as she had for 56 years, since the time of her 27th year when she entered the eternal night of the vampire.  Though she remained eternally young, her mind and soul had changed with the passing decades, become more refined and calculating, corrupted by wicked thought.  At first, she took victims from country roads after dark.  Her thirst for blood she now gratified by luring naïve victims from Goth night clubs and from so-called vampire clubs like Club Orpheus.  Club Orpheus, a decadent place which blended the pounding rhythms of Manson and Slipknot with the socializing of would-be vampires.  From Club Orpheus, Aradnia lured Rebecca and the Watcher, two who wanted power, but who found instead horror and forced servitude to an immensely powerful vampiress.                                      
                                     
Aradnia's own servitude was to the energy and supernatural power of blood.  She loved the science and mystery of blood, how the blood's connective tissue, its platelets and red and white cells carried an incredible force to every nerve and energized her entire body, revitalizing it, giving it power and youth.  Vampiric change also wrought changes in physical appearance: fangs, jet-black eyes, thick skin the color of grayish marble, pointed ears.  Alterations in DNA, in cellular constitution and blood vessel  regeneration that changed Aradnia forever, as if she'd been infected by a virulent yet majestic virus of near electric potency that made her eternal and vanquished all other illness.  These changes she accepted as part of her pact with the night, the price she paid for indulging in the sublime coppery-iron taste and the mystery of blood, and for being one with the nocturne.  She had now become addicted to the thick, heavy taste of blood and its life-giving proteins.  Aradnia, her heart and mind forever altered, was no longer truly human, but was an intelligent lethal creature who lusted for blood drinking.  As the Watcher looked on in the shadowed room, Aradnia withdrew another measure of blood from Rebecca, not enough to kill, not yet, for both Rebecca and Draven still had a purpose to serve this night.  Ardania reached into the wooden box of implements and withdrew a four inch hypodermic needle.  Carefully, with minute skill, she inserted the needle into the radial vein at her left wrist.  Aradnia drew a small amount of her blood from the vein.  "You must have a portion of my blood to make you strong enough for tonight," she told Rebecca.  Dimly aware of what was to happen, the young woman stared at the vampiress as Aradnia jabbed the needle into a vein in Rebecca's right temple and injected the blood, then removed the needle.  Rebecca grimaced in pain and fought against her restraints.  "There, my dear, now you are ready," Aradnia spoke, softly.  The Watcher had pulled himself up off the floor and stood looking on.  "We have a mission at Druid Ridge this night," the vampiress said  to the Watcher and Rebecca.  Aradnia touched the needle-wound on her left wrist and  the wound at Rebecca's temple, and the wounds bled no more.                                        
                                     
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Druid Ridge Cemetery rested in a shadowed land of trees, memorial statues, and tombs.  In this graveyard, the dead who were interred rested not in peace, but in waiting.  Some spirits of Druid Ridge lingered awaiting heaven or dreading hell; others wandered lost; while some walked the grounds seeking retribution on the living.  Into the darkened confines of Druid Ridge Cemetery, Aradnia, Rebecca, and the Watcher entered.  Aradnia led them past the white marble gravestones, each one inscribed with the name of a soul now in the merciless grip of death.  A chill wind of November 1st embraced the vampiress and her servants while they walked among the dead.  Darkened, seven-foot high bronze metal statues of angels and saints watched, like towering sentinels guarding the secrets of the departed.  But these guardians had no power over the vampiress; they could not prevent her evil intent.  The stone crucifixes of the graveyard likewise wielded no power over Aradnia; their reputed power existed only in myth.                                    
                                     
Aradnia guided Rebecca and Draven to a tomb, in front of which stood a painted greenish metal statue of an angel reaching heavenward toward the full moon.  "Mordecai awaits us within the crypt," Aradnia spoke to her servants.  "He has brought us fresh blood."  Aradnia reached out her right hand, grasped the iron metal door of the tomb, opened it.  Inside, on the white marble floor of the crypt, four caskets, two of brown oak, two of black oak, rested on stone supports of white marble.  Five black candles rested on each coffin, illuminating the tomb, casting shadows about.  Between the front caskets stood a man of Aradnia's height.  Early forties, dressed in stylish black, he looked directly ahead.  His face, pale, hair grayish-dark, his frame thin, he appeared weak, yet was powerful, a vampire in his own right.  His tapered face bore an intensity, as if a night predator about to attack.  On the floor in front of him were two people of conservative dress.  One victim freshly murdered by Mordecai, the other clinging to life, both still filled with blood.  "Very nice, we will gratify our thirst this night," Aradnia commented upon witnessing the victims.  "Then Mordecai,  you will clean the blood drops off the floor and bury the remains in a hidden place.  Or perhaps I ought to destroy you this evening, Mordecai.  You are growing too strong; I can't allow you to challenge to me."                                      
                                     
The moment Aradnia finished speaking these words, she leaped at Mordecai with incredible speed, pouncing upon him like a gigantic bat or winged crow.  She dug her red claws into Mordecai's face and neck, trying to break the bones in a single stroke.  But Mordecai shoved her off, sending Aradnia crashing into a black oak casket.  The casket toppled to the floor, sending the candles rolling onto the marble floor, where they flickered but ignited nothing.  Skeletal remains within the casket tumbled out in a macabre array of calcified bone.  From a corner of the tomb, Rebecca and the Watcher looked on, still caught in the hypnotic power of Aradnia.  Rebecca, mouth still sewn tightly shut, wept, tears running down her cheeks.  "Tear Mordecai apart," Aradnia commanded.  The two weaker vampires, not yet half Aradnia's power, obeyed, pouncing on Mordecai, hammering at him with taloned fists, ripping at his face and throat with fingernails sharp as razors.  But Mordecai, in a fit of superhuman strength, clutched Rebecca and Draven by the face, Rebecca by the left and the Watcher by the right.  As though a leather-winged bat discarding prey, he threw them off of him, hurling them into the white marble walls of the mortuary.  Draven recovered and ran at Mordecai again.  Mordecai reached down, retrieved a brass handle from the overturned, broken coffin, and hit Draven on the left half of the face, cutting the jaw, sending him falling back into the white marble wall of the crypt again.  Now Mordecai, face and neck bloodied,  turned his attention to Aradnia.  "I'm going to be rid of you, " he said, in a rasping voice.  He moved to attack the vampiress, but  from a concealed place, using her right hand, she had taken a hatchet used for dismembering her victims.  In one quick, skilled move, Aradnia chopped the hatchet's wide steel blade down and across Mordecai's throat and neck, nearly severing the head.  Mordecai, blood jetting from the arteries in his neck wavered, but did not fall at once.  Rebecca uttered a muted scream upon witnessing the horror.  Aradnia, a tall black-garbed figure of the nocturne,  grinned and turned to Rebecca and the Watcher. Then Aradnia faced Mordecai and brought the hatchet's long blade like a cleaver down onto the back of Mordecai's neck, chopping through flesh, muscle, spine, decapitating him.  His head fell to the floor.  Spurting  blood, the headless corpse dropped to its knees.  The right hand of corpse dropped the brass coffin handle, then pitched face-down on the marble.  Now Aradnia, Rebecca, and Draven stood in the candle-lit tomb, amid three bodies and the putridity of death.  Rebecca continued sobbing.  "Stop weeping!," Aradnia commanded.  "Now we may finally drink."  Aradnia placed the hatchet on the lid of a brown oaken casket.                                  
                                     
"You may cut the black thread from her lips.  I shall allow her to drink blood and gain energy," Aradnia told  Draven.  In silence, he complied.  Draven withdrew a small black-blade knife from a sheath in his jacket.  Quickly, but with a meticulous ability, he used the six-inch knife to cut the black thread which had bound Rebecca's mouth, then replaced the blade.  Rebecca opened her mouth, exposing two white fangs, a hideous new outgrowth of pointed bone.  Gradually, Rebecca pulled the black thread from her lips.  "I will not partake," Rebecca said.  "You will drink blood tonight or  you will die for lack of it," Aradnia told Rebecca.  Aradnia and the Watcher stood looking at Rebecca, laughing, mocking her plight.  For a brief moment Rebecca hesitated, then overcome with blood hunger she ran to the twitching, not yet dead body of an attractive, middle-aged brunette woman in clothing of white and red, on the cold marble floor of the crypt, and tore open the throat.  Rebecca began drinking the blood that fountained from the right and left jugular veins.  Aradnia and Draven joined in the blood-letting.  Aradnia, smiling, eyes of black, using her fangs to puncture the jugular veins, biting down into neck of the victim  The three vampires, like enormous black bats with leathery wings, illuminated by the flickering candlelight of the tomb, converged on the woman, knelt down, moved their sharply-angled batwing arms to cover the woman, and plunged fangs into each side her throat.  The vampires ripped open soft flesh, exposing a delicate network of veins and arteries which spurted forth warm blood and stained the vampires crimson.  Aradnia, drank deeply of the life-giving blood, growing more powerful as the copperish tasting red liquid flowed down her throat, circulated, and regenerated the cells of her body.  The brunette woman moaned, fought, but the vampires held her arms in a grip of claws that cracked and broke bone and crushed bone marrow.  The brunette woman quickly died, her breath ended, her dead vacant eyes of blue looking into eternity.  Her pale flesh, cold and dead.  The metallic smell of blood now blending with the horrid odor of decay.  
 
At the end, the three vampires extinguished the candles of the crypt and departed back into the night.  Stalking the graveyard by the moonlight, they walked among the graves of the dead and the statues that reached out but never held.  Mournful echoes of The Druid Ridge dead could be heard under the green, shadowed trees and among the grave markers.  The vampires eluded outside observation by means of stealth and witchcraft magic that protected them.  The vampires did not worry themselves about capture.  Whatever evidence they left behind -- prints, candles, weapons, would be traced only to people missing or confirmed dead.                                      
                                     
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After the departure of Aradnia and her vampire servants, Druid Ridge Cemetery was quiet again; the heavy air of death returned, a perpetual burden felt by any living being who intruded there.  The cool breath of November surrounded all.  The grief and anger of the dead who walked Druid Ridge was mitigated only by the phantom priests and ministers who wandered the graveyard eternally, uttering prayer and pleading for release which never came.  And Aradnia had returned to her haunted mansion, which rested like a decaying, red-brick tomb amid towering trees and green ivy.