Blood Sacrifice

There were two other girls in a black vehicle waiting outside. Lara had gotten in, surprised to see other people in the spacey car. One girl had short blonde hair that made her heart-shaped face delicate. Her eyes were large and light brown, her frame very small and fragile-looking. She reminded Lara of the small mice that often got eaten by the huge, black rats in the Tombstones.

The other girl was the opposite. She had dark, tan skin and dark brown hair. Her face was angular and set in a permanent scowl. She looked rough, dirt on her face and her eyes dark like hard, compact earth. She was exotic looking, more like the tough rat that would eat the mouse. Suddenly Lara found herself picturing Roma, who had the same skin tone as this girl. But Roma was dead, along with most of the people Lara knew.

At first, no one said anything. Nikolai was not in the car with them. Nikolai. Nikolai Dimitrikova was one of two vampire kinds that lived in Manus Dei. There were other large empire that had as many as five covens and five kings, but in the large, circular empire that was called the Hand of God, there were only two, who did not always get along.

Lara tried to remember which reputation followed the Dimitrikova line. It wasn’t always easy to remember what ideology followed what coven. That, and there were small bands of groups who didn’t belong to larger covens who ran the streets by themselves. Most of the time those bands were ignored, but often one coven or the other would wipe the city of their presence.

Dimitrikova had to be the older one. Lara was almost sure that Nikolai was the one famed for age, a vampire even before the Red Fang was a problem and before humans even knew they weren’t just a myth. He was as old as they came, dating back to Europe when there were castles and plagues. There were plagues now too, but brought on by unhealthy blood sharing.

Looking out the window, Lara was astonished. The buildings were like something out of a dream. She could see them all the way out in the Tombstones, silver sparks against the sky. But up close they were huge, leaning over her like watch dogs of silver and mirror.

Everything was shinning and nice. Not one sidewalk was cracked and not one surface was painted over with marked territories. No wonder Red Fever and Red Fang were ever an issue within the Cage. Everything was clean and beautiful, the picture perfect place. Lara shook the image of beauty out of her head, reminding herself that it was called the Cage for a reason.

So what did that make the Tombstone? Right, the end of humanity, they said.

“I’ve never been this close either.” The deep voice belonged to the girl with the dark hair. She was looking at Lara and then jutted her chin out to gesture at the window. “This is the first time I’ve ever been near anything like it.”

Lara nodded. The girl was in a tank top, jacket and sneakers. She didn’t look well put together, but then again, she didn’t look like she had to be. The clothes looked right on her, they made her look tough. “What about you?” Lara looked at the doe-eyed girl. “Have you ever been here?”

She nodded once. “I live here.”

“Oh.”

Turning away, Lara tried not to grimace. A girl who already gave active donation to the blood banks had decided to up it one notch and become a free blood-tap. People like her were born into the life of the rich and caged. They were allowed to give donations in exchange for living where they did. People like Lara and the other girl weren’t allowed. They were either the street rats of the Tombstone or they were open veins in the houses. There was no in between, no way to rise other than to completely sell one’s freedom.

“I did it to get away from my family,” Doe-eyed said quietly. Lara glanced at her uncomfortably. “My dad drinks too much.”

“At least you have a daddy.” Tough-girl had a point and Lara hummed in agreement. She wasn’t going to offer any information about herself. She wasn’t sure why Doe-eyed had. They weren’t friends. Chances were that one of them would either be eliminated in a grace period or they would bow out. “My name is Carmen, by the way.”

“Lara.”

“Merit Smith.”

Another Cage thing. People in the Cage had last names and family names. People in the Tombstones didn’t know where they came from, what their last names were or what part of the world they were originally from. It was almost like they had burst into existence, suddenly beings on the earth with a past and a present, neither one of them accessible.

For the rest of the car ride, the girls were silent. Merit didn’t look out of the window like Lara and Carmen seemed unable to stop doing. Perhaps Merit had already seen enough, or she was truly just bored. Leaving and becoming part of a bloodship seemed little more than a way to get away from a perfectly good life- save for the alcohol abuse. Lara secretly admired her for getting out of there, but also felt colored with jealousy that she lived in more comfort than she ever could have.

Outside, the world became less about the tall buildings and more about houses. It slowly began to turn into trees and open spaces of green. It was quite beautiful, the kind of nature that wasn’t savage or brutal, but gentle and unfurling. Trees here had buds of flowers and pretty leaves instead of thorns and naked branches.

A large brick wall began to rise in the distance. Lara watched it grow as they drove closer, decided that it was at least fifteen feet high of perfectly constructed, red brick. An iron gate just as high as the wall and about twenty feet in length met them. Its metal spokes at the top were sharp and lethal, shaped like arrowheads. On both side of the gate, an elegant ‘D’ was shaped, clearly for Dimitrikova. Lara wondered why they felt the need to remind everyone who owned the property, like someone could forget.

Stopping at the gate, the driver rolled the window down and pressed a button. Someone on the speaker spoke to him in a light voice before the gate began swinging towards the inside, opening for them. The car pulled through, staying on a smoothly paved road all the way down the property that seemed covered in trees at first.

Rows and rows of trees went on forever. Just when Lara though they were going to be living in the bushes, the line of trees broke. The breath escaped her lungs and she fought to find it again as she looked ahead of her. Across a huge stretch of land that served as a quad was the most magnificent building Lara had ever laid eyes on.

Cream stone made up the entire structure, the bones of the building stretched wide and high. There were at the very least five floors to the building, though Lara was sure it had to be more than that. It stretched for several hundred yards across the front only to stop and continue down the east side of the property. It seemed like there were almost two separate buildings, joined only by a narrow strip of home.

Never in her life had Lara seen a castle. She wasn’t sure if this was a castle that she was looking at now, but she thought that it was. It was certainly larger and far more grand than anything that she had ever seen. Pulling up to the huge set of stairs that led to a heavy, double door entrance, Lara decided that it was definitely a castle. Her mother had told her about castles one time, something that used to be popular thousands of years before.

“That is one hell of a building,” Carmen muttered, looking up the window and out. Her breath fogged up the glass as she watched the building with interest. “How many rooms does that thing have?”

“Over fifty.” Lara and Carmen both looked at Merit. “We learn about it in school.”

“Why?” Lara and Carmen both questioned at the same time. Both of their brows were knit as they stared at Merit. Lara was thinking that this girl was getting stranger by the second. Carmen she could possibly relate to. But this blonde, doe-eyed girl with clean fingernails and delicate skin seemed as alien as the vampires did.

“Nikolai Dimitrikova is one of the oldest vampires in the known world,” Merit answered. The driver was walking around to open the door to the car. Lara’s nerves began to twist and her palms began to sweat. “And he is one of the ruling heads of the city. Why wouldn’t we learn about him? Our textbooks, of course, have to add Patrick Cortez to the mix now.”

Merit stopped speaking as the door opened. She got out, smoothing her clothes down and stepping to the side to turn around and look at Carmen and Lara. Lara followed Carmen out of the car, quickly pulling down the hemline of her dress that was pulled up by the wind, showing the pale side of her legs that were never shown to the sun.

Miniscule. Lara felt absolutely miniscule next to the palace that they called the Towers. It towered over everyone, the moon casting shadows against the side of the building. It was so large that corners of the building vanished in the night, too far and too dark for Lara to see. Lights burned in the windows while some others were dark.

Blinking, Lara flinched. She was sure that a moment before the stairs in front of her had been empty. But when she blinked, she found Nikolai standing on the stairs, arms linked behind his back. Karina was walking in through the door, her shoulders square and rigid as she vanished behind the heavy door. Her brother looked at the three of them, his eyes dark and his face shadowed. He looked better in the night air, with the breeze surrounding them and his dark suite against white stares.

“Ladies,” he nodded his head. “Welcome to your new home. I hope that within the grace period, none of you feel the need to return to your homes, wherever that may be. We will meet again within a few days to discuss terms of this bloodship.” He turned and began walking away, looking to his right where the driver was standing with his hands crossed behind his back. “Malcolm, take these ladies to the washroom. Lenore is waiting for them.”

Nikolai vanished in the doorway. Malcolm turned to them. He was not the same vampire who had picked Lara up at the embassy between the Cage and the Tombstones. He seemed kinder, somehow. He had ebony skin and light brown eyes that made Lara think of the sun. He was bald and large, one of the biggest men that Lara had ever seen, with a voice so deep that she could barely hear him. But he had smiled at her when she first got into the car, and she liked him better for it.

“I will be taking you to the washroom,” Malcolm rumbled. It sounded like the shaking sound before a rockslide. “Lenore will be they’re waiting for you and she will prepare you and give you new clothes. She will had a list of guidelines on how to carry yourself in this house and what is currently expected of you as pre-bloodship prospects.”

None of the trio spoke. Malcolm nodded and gestured for them to follow him. Merit was the first to move up the steps, no hesitation in her step. Lara and Carmen both remained on the stairs for a moment, looking at the place warily. They exchanged cursory glances before beginning to walk up the steps and towards the door.

Stepping inside the Towers was like stepping into a dream spun with gold. The foyer was made of stone and was lit by dark, iron chandeliers. Lara could not tell if they were candles or run by electricity. They cast a gold glow about the room, which would have made it absolutely angelic, had it not been for the obvious trail of dark blood that flood the stone floor and made it’s way up the stairs.

Lara’s heart stopped. She zeroed in on the blood, wondering if they were about to kill her there. Her heartbeat was in her ears, thundering and pushing up against her eardrums until she heard the sound of clear laughter, eyes shooting up the steps to the sound of it.

A couple stood on the stairs, a beautiful sight right out of the darkest corners of Lara’s nightmares. The girl was dressed in all black, her wild brown hair sticky with what Lara assumed was blood. She could only see the side of her face, but it was a horrible and beautiful side. The girls brow was ripped open, bits of flesh peeling back away from the wound, blood caked and cracked down the side of her beautiful face. There was also a cut open along her chin, deeper and darker than the one on her brow.

The girl’s face was heart shaped and she opened her lips to laugh loudly at something said to her, fangs flashing in the glow of the light. It was disturbingly angelic and Lara felt like she needed to throw up before her eyes ghosted to the second half of the couple.

If the girl was magnificent, Lara wasn’t sure what to call the man. Her vocabulary was rudimentary at best, and she couldn’t form the correct word in her mind to describe him. Like Nikolai, he was tall and extremely broad in the shoulders. His dark hair was styled perfect and he was looking at the woman next to him, smiling with crimson painted across his face. It looked like it belonged to someone else.

Dressed in a white button up, it was as though he had previously been dressed well. His shirt was ruined, though. Blood had stained one side of the shirt, spreading out like dye and touching his armpit with tendrils of red. His slacks were ripped and his sleeves were half rolled. He looked like what Lara’s mother described to her as a fallen angel, an avenger of the Christian God who had betrayed him and fallen to earth.

“Ignore the blood,” Malcolm said, drawing her attention away from the two people whose hands were linked on the stairs, bathed in blood and beauty. “It isn’t human, I promise. You can tell by how dark it is. Those two aren’t to be bothered with, as they do not often display such brutality and gore. I assure you that they do not seem as savage as they look-" he broke off and made a face. “-one of them, anyways.”

“I didn’t know vampire blood was darker, sir,” Merit said, her voice trilling in the hall as she began to trail after Malcolm, who was leading them away. Lara didn’t look back up the stairs, afraid of the bloody couple. “Nothing ever said-"

“You will find more than your books have to offer,” Malcolm said firmly, but not unkindly. They followed a hall lined with the same typed of lighting on the high ceiling. It was cold in the Towers, but Lara fought a shiver. “If you’re not careful, you may actually learn something here, ladies.”

Everything was too large. Lara felt like the Towers were swallowing her whole, like she was walking down the deep and dark throat into the belly of the beast. It didn’t help that it was cold, as if she were going further into some sort of listless void. Lara tried not to think about voids or about beasts as she walked around yet another corner. They had passed so many rooms and corners that Lara wouldn’t have been able to find her way back.

Fingers wrapped in the dress material, she continued to look around. Her backpack was heavy on her shoulder. They hadn’t so much as crossed another vampire yet, which made Lara’s skin crawl. She thought that the house would be crawling in them, creatures looming in dark corners and dead virgins lying on the stairs. Maybe the virgins were a stretch; Lara knew that no one in this day an age was a virgin anymore. Sex got you survival equipment.

The room that Malcolm led the trio to was massive and warm. Hot and moist air hit her instantly, coming from the large ten by ten pool in the ground. Steam was coming off of the top and at the head of it were four faucets with gold knobs. There was a glowing screen in the raised border of the pool, though Lara wasn’t sure what it was for.

A woman stood in front of the steaming water. Her hair was twisted in a bun and she wore a button up shirt over dark jeans. Her face was beautiful and had a glow to it. She smiled at them and for the very first time since leaving the abandoned subway car in Ward Four, Lara felt safe. It was the way she smiled, close lipped but lightning her eyes.

“You can leave now, Malcolm.” Her voice was flavored with something different, that no one else had seemed to possess. It was a way of speaking, a way she shaped her vowels and her words that Lara was unfamiliar with. “Thank you so much.” Malcolm didn’t say anything or glance the woman’s way. He turned and left the room, shutting it firmly behind him. All three girls looked at the woman whose hands were gently clasped in front of her. “I’m Lenore and I want to start by saying if you’re afraid, that’s okay.”

Afraid was hardly the word for it. Lara was somewhere between keeping her head held high and wanting to slip away and go back to hunting rats in the Tombstones. “Are you one of us, or one of them?” Carmen asked the question. Lara looked at her. She was standing closest to Lenore, who was still radiating warmth. “One of the vampires, I mean.”

Lenore laughed lightly. If she was offended, she didn’t show it. Licking her lips first, she opened her mouth and pulled her lips over her teeth, showing the pointed canines. Lara instantly felt the muscles in her shoulders coil as she watched Lenore close her mouth again. “I am a vampire, but only recently.”

“How old is recently? A hundred years?”

“Actually, only three years.”

“Are you going to rip our throats out?”

Lenore shook her head. “No more than I hope you don’t rip out mine.” She gestured to the steaming water. “It’s a bath, drawn for the three of you. It should be warm enough to get into now. I’m sure a fresh bath is welcome. I remember washing the first time I came for a bloodship-"

“You were a bloodship?” Lara couldn’t stop the question from exploding from her lips. Lenore didn’t seem to mind. Her face was placid. “Ma’am,” she added awkwardly.

“You never have to refer to me as ma’am,” she walked over to the glowing pad near the faucets. She hit a button and the water rumbled, jets turning on. Lara had never taken a bath, or submerged herself in water. There was only the ran and the occasional run off water from continuous amounts of rain. “You’ll never have to call me that. I’m your equal.”

“That has fangs,” Carmen pointed out.

“Carmen,” Merit hissed quietly, scolding her. Merit turned to face Lenore and smiled, taking off her shoes and pulling the shoulders off her dress off. Lara stared at Merit as she began to disrobe easily. “Thank you, Lenore. So you were in our position, once?”

She nodded. Carmen and Lara were still standing fully clothed while Merit was stripped completely of clothing. Her body was small and delicate, just like Lara had originally thought. Her rips were slightly visible and her elbows were bony. It reminded Lara that even though she was fed less, she wasn’t having her blood drained. She wasn’t having half of herself stolen. Yet.

With slow fingers, Lara began to pull off her clothing. First she unlaced the boots, careful and watching Lenore the whole time. She still felt like she could trust the vampire woman, though she wasn’t totally sure why. She had thought that from the first time she saw her. Lara was trying to pinpoint what it was as she kicked off her shoes.

No socks covered her feet. There were blisters and calluses from where the boots had rubbed her. Lara learned to deal with them. Next she pulled off the thin dress, standing in nothing but a half torn bra and a pathetic excuse of clothe for underwear. Both were black- she chose it that way- and extremely old. These Lara took off easily, not caring that she was full exposed in front of strangers. There was no such thing as privacy. All that remind on Lara was a thin chain from which a thin crystal hung. She was sure that it was nothing expensive, but it was something her mother had worn for years. Before she was torn away from Lara, she had given it to Lara as a keepsake, and she had kept it ever since, the one thing she would never trade.

Chewing on the corner of her lip, Lara walked towards the tub. Merit was in the water shoulder deep. She was turned away from them, shoulder blades pointed and sharp. Lara held out one foot over the water and hesitated, looking at Lenore who was watching patiently.

“Can I have one good reason to trust you?”

Lenore shook her head. “I don’t have one to give.”

Lara shook her head. “Good enough for me,” she responded, and stepped into the hot water.