From Her Vein to the Floor

"I can't believe that I am
Down in this hole,
Always paying the toll
For having found my way to you.

It doesn't matter that I pushed you away.
When you wanted to stay,
I had to find a way to make you talk to me.
Why won't you talk to me?"
- Ra

Antony burst through the door of the old, abandoned-seeming house his father had turned into a blood-brothel. It reeked of blood and sweat, sex and death, and though Antony and Skylar both cringed in disgust, finding the mixture of smells to be an almost unbearable assault on their nostrils, they pressed on.

Antony led the way up the stairs, his footsteps on the hollow wooden structure creating an uncomfortably loud rumbling, a thundering that rang through the house. Skylar followed, but he wasn't brave enough to make so much noise in such an unfamiliar place, especially an unfamiliar place filled with soulless vampires who wanted to buy people as slaves. His footsteps were decidedly light upon the stairs, necessarily slower, and it took him a moment to catch up with Antony at the top. The vampire then led the way down the hall, following the scent of Torryn's peculiar blood and his own sex to a room in which a group of vampire's lounged, all standing about in a little social circle. Caesar Warren still stood with Samuel beside the open door, counting his money over and over again as he listened to the conversation of the vampires around him, and that was where Antony went the moment he walked in.

He grabbed his father by the front of his perfectly tailored shirt and slammed his back against the nearest wall, much like Skylar had done to him only minutes ago. His father only smiled as Antony snarled in his face, "Where is she?"

"Making me money," came the calm reply. "Elsewhere."

Antony jerked him forward and rammed him back again; this time, the man's back hit the wall hard enough to send cracks rippling through the old, brittle wood. Skylar watched silently from the doorway. "Where is she?" Antony said again, a mean hiss through clenched teeth.

Caesar's smile grew. "Elsewhere," he repeated, and laughed lowly, mockingly.

"Where?" he screamed, shaking his father so hard that the man's head hit the wall and sent even more cracks through the wood. The scent of fresh dead blood rushed to his nose.

Caesar laughed again, almost cackling now, wild and depraved. "Even if I told you, you could do nothing about it."

"So tell me, anyway," he snarled, giving the man another shake.

"419 Heckleberry Lane," came the laughed answer. "If you hurry, maybe you'll get to catch them in the act."

Antony punched the man full-force in the face, sending him straight through the wall this time, and was down the stairs before the dust had even begun to settle, still moving with that uncontrollable vampire quickness. Skylar followed, the haunting, howling laughter of Antony's father and Samuel Abrams echoing after him down the stairs.

"That was easier than I expected," the human remarked, having to sprint to keep up with Antony's quick walk toward the car.

"He was waiting for us," Antony said as he slid behind the wheel of his car, Skylar sliding into the seat that Torryn had occupied so many times before, a poor substitute for her full pink lips and slender body. "He planned this." He started the car, slamming on the gas before he even remembered to close his own door. "He thinks it's funny. They all think our emotions are funny."

Skylar looked at him from across the middle console, frowning at the all-consuming blackness of the vampire's pupils. "Why don't you just kill him?" he asked, his tone gravely serious. "He's obviously not a good man. You're his son, and he doesn't even care about your feelings."

"He's an undead vampire," Antony retorted. "You can't fault him for the twisted things he does. It's just in his nature."

Skylar's frown deepened, his brow furrowing in a glare. "And that makes it all right?"

Antony looked at him with those all-black eyes, swerving around a truck that he couldn't possibly have seen even in his periphery as the car neared 60 miles per hour. "If I killed every fucked up, P.O.S. vampire in this town, there would be no underground, no place for me to go when I become undead." He turned his gaze back to the road, the headlights falling on a sign that read 'Speed Limit 35 MPH' just as the speedometer's needle passed 80. "Besides, even if I wanted to take them all out, I couldn't. I would end up dead after killing my father."

-?-

The sound of her heart beating much too rapidly thrummed in Torryn's ears, a constant throbbing that made her head hurt, and the buzzing of her nerves like a pack of angry bees didn't help. She lay down on the unmade bed, just as she was told. She turned her face to the side, pressing her cheek against a pillow that stank of old blood and old sex. She squeezed her eyes shut and waited.

"She's already naked," the seductive woman said with a disappointed sigh. "It's less fun when they're already naked."

"The fun is the blood," the man argued, though his voice was empty of argument, empty of emotion altogether. "What more do you need?"

"The chase; the hunt," the woman answered, and Torryn felt her weight shifting the bed to one side. "You know what I mean."

"Then why did you buy her?" he asked. The bed drooped to Torryn's left, opposite of the woman.

"I thought there would be more to it than this," the woman said, letting loose another sigh forced from airless lungs. "And really, where else would I find a Progeny? The offer was too good to pass up. Plus..." Her voice broke off with a cold, crazy chuckle, and Torryn felt a fingernail trailing lightly down her belly. "Doesn't she just look like such a fun little toy?" Teeth slid into her stomach, a tender, untouched spot just above her hip bone, and she gasped, her eyes snapping open in surprise.

The woman was bent over her, a hand on her chest for balance, blonde curls hiding her face. She was already groaning in pleasure, and she'd only been drinking from Torryn for a matter of seconds. The girl's eyes darted to the man, but he wouldn't look at her. He merely leaned toward her and let his fangs pierce her neck. She gasped again at the sharp sting, but it wasn't long before the saliva began to soothe her. The fangs in her throat and stomach became sources of throbbing pleasure, not pain; and when a hand gripped her breast, she couldn't be angry. Slowly, her eyes drifted shut once more, and she found comfort in the familiar feel of pulls from her vein.

The woman's fingers – at least, Torryn assumed it was the woman's fingers – slid between her legs with a slow and taunting touch, and another pair of fingers teasingly pinched her nipple. The fangs in her right side slid away, and the woman asked in her low, seductive voice, "Have you ever eaten a girl out before?" She was much too close to Torryn's face, the scent of blood on her breath strong enough to make Torryn cringe. "Well, have you, honey?" she urged when Torryn didn't immediately answer, and the girl forced her eyes open.

Part of her – the last conscious, coherent part – decided that there had to be pheromones in the air. She wouldn't have been in such a lull otherwise. Or would she?

"No," she slurred, and a cold feeling spread through her half-numb body as the woman's sadistic smile grew.

"Want me to teach you?" she asked, leaning closer to begin placing feather-light, shiver-inducing kisses all along the unused side of Torryn's neck. "We could try a 69," she said between kisses, now intermingled with light nibbles and licks. "I'm sure you've tried one of those before. It's much, much better with two girls, though, if I do say so myself." Her tongue slid from Torryn's collar bone to her jaw in one clean lick, and she soon had her lips against Torryn's, fingers moving between her legs all the while.

She'd never kissed a girl before, had never even thought about it, but now, with her body full of vampire saliva and pheromones and her mind in a haze, she thought it was the most perfect idea she'd ever heard. She kissed the woman back sloppily but eagerly, and their tongues met to leave the taste of her own blood in her mouth. It reminded her of kissing Antony, and she suddenly wanted him badly.

"You're getting in my way," the man growled in his deep, dark voice, and Torryn thought that his fangs were still in her neck, but she knew she could've been wrong about that. "I don't care what you do with her as long as you stay out of my space."

The woman pulled away from Torryn with a tinkling little laugh, and the girl's head lolled against the pillow, filled with thoughts of her long-lost Antony. "Find somewhere else to feed from," she said in a tinkling little voice to match that tinkling little laugh. "This would be better for all three of us if you let me try what I had in mind." Torryn felt her arm being raised, then came the sensation of the woman's fangs sinking into her wrist, right into the vein. She pulled out and moved a centimeter to one side, biting into the vein again. She did this over and over again, stopping only when she reached the inside of Torryn's elbow and the warm stickiness of blood was everywhere.

"Why do I not believe that?" the man asked after watching the woman's strange actions. "You should really try eating your food instead of playing with it sometime."

"I can do both," the woman said, running her tongue along the trail of puncture wounds to prove her point, letting out an over-the-top moan as the blood filled her mouth.

"You're just going to make her bleed to death," he said, annoyance growing more and more obvious in his tone. The woman only laughed, dropping Torryn's arm and beginning to leave another trail of bleeding holes along her stomach. Torryn groaned. She was becoming lightheaded, dizzy, and the pleasant tingling covering her pain was beginning to fade.

The woman sank her fangs into Torryn's breast suddenly, allowing them to slide in as far as they would go, and withdrew them almost instantly with unnecessary roughness. Torryn let out a soft cry of pain. Why was this hurting? It shouldn't be hurting. Not while she was still being bitten.

"Stop it," the man snapped, and Torryn opened her eyes to find him glowering down at the woman. "You're not leaving your teeth in her for long enough. You're hurting her."

"Oh, boo," she whined, though a smirk still curved her lips. "Who cares? I'm just getting my money's worth. After all, she's just a plaything." She bit into Torryn's other breast, but the moment she withdrew this time, Torryn punched her in the face. It was more of an instinct than anything, but instincts were what had helped her survive before. Why would she question them now?

She rolled off of the bed, right past the woman as she recoiled to hold her nose. "She broke my nose!" she cried in disbelief, her words muffled only slightly by her hands. "That little whore broke my nose!"

Torryn started for the door, but the man stepped in her way, arms extended as he prepared to grab her. She sprinted at him, though, ramming her shoulder into him at full force and not stopping until his back hit the wall. He let out a soft "Oof!", but she didn't show him any mercy. He began to reach for her again, and she stopped him with a punch to the jaw that was much harder than the one she'd used to break the woman's nose. He crumpled to the floor, unconscious. Torryn scoffed.

Undead vampires weren't supposed to go down that easily. After all, they had pheromones and twice the strength to rely on. What the hell was wrong with this guy?

She forced the thought from her mind, though, and hurried toward the door. Her arms ached, her stomach ached, her neck ached, her legs ached, but she wasn't going to stop now. She could do this.

But a hand caught her shoulder and jerked her backward, sending her sprawling across the blood-stained bed. The woman was on top of her in a heartbeat, fangs piercing her neck unmercifully. She cried out, but the pain was soon dulled by the vampire saliva and the array of pheromones entering the air. The woman was pulling from her vein roughly, eagerly, and for a moment, that was all right with Torryn. She moaned, writhing against the woman, and the vampire let out a low chuckle.

"There we go," she murmured as she pulled her fangs from Torryn's neck. "That's a good girl." But through the haze of pleasure, Torryn was clinging to her only goal, her only real desire: to escape from this place before this crazy woman and her deceptively sweet partner killed her.

She kicked the woman off of her, relying on her own will instead of instinct this time around. The vampire flew from the bed but somehow managed to land on her feet on the floor, and Torryn sat up to find her hissing, teeth bared, much like an angry cat. Trying to push the haze of confusion and empty pleasure from her mind, Torryn lurched to her feet and faced the woman squarely. She forced her body into a fighting stance, numbed though she was by the pheromones and blood loss.

If she was going to die here, she certainly wouldn't be doing it without a fight.

-?-

"Is this it?" Skylar asked as the car jerked to a stop beside a basic two-story house. He was out the door before his question had even been answered, though, sprinting toward the front door and throwing it open with a burst of telekinetic power. It slammed against the wall of a sparsely furnished living room, sending a loud, resounding bang throughout the house, but he couldn't be bothered to give a damn at the moment. Torryn was here. He could feel it.

"Torryn!" he screamed as he ran through the doorway, and Antony's far-away shout of "Shut up, dumbass!" barely registered in his buzzing mind. "Torryn, where are you?" He stopped in the middle of the living room, spinning in confused circles as he looked and listened for any signs of life in the silent house. Antony came through the door a moment later, and his nose was already twitching madly.

"Upstairs," he said, unable to make himself stop sniffing the air. He made his way to the second floor, feet once again creating a much-too-loud thundering upon the stairs, and Skylar was quick to follow in spite of all the noise he was making. He'd already given himself away by screaming. Why be quiet now?

The moment he and Antony reached the top, a body flew through a doorway only feet down the hall. The woman hit the wall with a harsh grunt and a thud, but she didn't go down. She landed on her feet, hands against the wall to either side of her for support, and bared her long, bloody fangs at the figure now emerging from the doorway.

"Torryn!" Skylar cried the second he recognized Torryn's naked, blood-covered form. He started to rush forward, but Antony grabbed his arm and jerked him back, nearly sending him down the stairs with his out-of-control vampire strength. "Let me go," the human growled, trying to pull his arm from Antony's grip and failing. The vampire wouldn't look at him; his pure black eyes were focused unblinkingly on the scene unfolding before him.

Torryn hadn't looked at Skylar, wouldn't look at Skylar. She had eyes only for the woman in front of her. She lashed out with a high kick, but the vampire dodged with ease and promptly caught hold of her ankle. She attempted to pull Torryn off balance, but the girl leaped into the air before she could fall and caught the woman in the jaw with her other foot. The vampire fell to one side, the Progeny to the other, though they were both on their feet in an instant.

The vampire threw herself forward, hissing as she bared her bloody fangs once more, and pinned Torryn's body against the wall with her own. Her teeth entered the side of the girl's neck with little trouble, filling her bloodstream with saliva even as she pumped pheromones into the air around her. Torryn felt herself growing foggier and more complacent with each beat of her heart, but she was quick to shove the woman away. The vampire's back hit one wall as Torryn slumped against the other, eyelids already beginning to droop in her rapidly developing daze, and Skylar snarled.

"We have to help her," he growled to Antony, who had yet to release his wrist.

"No," Antony answered in a cold, empty whisper, eyes still transfixed on the scene, "we don't."

By that time, Torryn and the vampire were already entangled on the cold wood of the floor, shoving and kicking and rolling about as the vampire tried to bite into her neck again and Torryn tried her damnedest to fight her off. The woman pinned her down at one point, but when she dipped down to strike, her hand slipped in the pool of blood growing on the floor, and Torryn rolled out from under her while she had the chance. Her back hit the wall, though, with a soft thump, and her eyes were almost completely closed. Even Skylar could feel himself becoming groggy, and he was standing several feet away from the battle. This wasn't good.

The woman was soon on top of Torryn again, bending over her on the floor and lapping at the blood on her neck as if she'd already won – and really, who could blame her? The half-Progeny merely sat there, eyes closed and arms limp; she didn't seem to have any fight left in her. But then, finally, she stirred.

"What do I look like to you?" she said suddenly, her voice a rough mixture of strain and annoyance. "A Goddamn buffet or something?" A swift, surprisingly strong kick knocked the woman into the opposite wall, and Skylar wasn't at all shocked to see the woman's head loll against her chest after the collision. He was, however, a bit shocked to see Torryn shoving the woman onto her back on the bloody floor and climbing on top of her, pinning her down with a knee to the chest.

"What is she-?" But the question was answered for him when Torryn took hold of the woman's head in both hands and tore it free from the rest of her body. The body and head both collapsed into a pile of dust on the floor almost instantly, and Torryn fell onto her ass beside the ash. Her eyes were already beginning to drift shut again when a man appeared in the doorway to the right of the ash piles, a man with strikingly dark eyes but no other remarkable features. She snapped to wakefulness once again, climbing her way to a standing position with her bloody hands along the wall, though there was still an obvious tiredness to the way she carried herself.

"Go," the man said in a deep, gruff voice when Torryn shifted into a shaky fighting stance. He had a hold of his jaw, and Skylar guessed that she'd already knocked him out once. "Just go." She collapsed, then, becoming a shivering white-and-red mass upon the floor. Her eyes were closed, a soft smile of what almost seemed to be relief on her pale pink lips, and Skylar didn't think they would be opening again any time soon.

Antony finally let go of the human's wrist, and he rushed to her side as if he thought she were dying, not just unconscious. He wasn't used to seeing her like this; he didn't know her like Antony did. But without a word to either of the vampires, he scooped the bloody, naked woman into his arms and vanished, leaving Antony to stand alone.

He never even got the chance to apologize.