Keeper of the Dead Chapter Three

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Chapter Three

When my eyes snapped open I felt pain. My skin was screaming with stinging sensations. Michelle was crouched over me bathing my burned skin with a damp cloth. She was quite battered, her left eye was bruised and swollen almost shut, her lower lip was puffy and very red, and there were cuts and scrapes all over her body. I could feel the heat of the bandage around her midsection. Blood had all ready soaked to the top layer, it was a long slice across her left side that stretched all the way to her belly button just above the bottom-most rib. I could see this because she was wearing a shirt that would not touch; though it was dirty, scorched, and bloodstained.
“Michelle, you are hurting.” My voice was small and very meek. The sound surprised me. It hurt terribly to move the words from my throat and across my tongue. My mouth was so dry and my teeth felt gritty.
“Easy there Marcus, don’t talk if it is painful. You were badly burned, no, don’t try to move. The others are safe, hardly scorched, if at all. You need to rest right now. Tell me when you want to feed. I am going to go to be there as the others wake. I don’t want them to see you like this it would frighten them. Rest Marcus, I will return.”
She left me in a totally dark room without windows of any kind. I figured that it was a basement. I labored to lift an arm to feel my face and my skin was parched and flaking. My lips were cracked and split. Immediately I opened my mouth to touch the illustrious fangs that made me what I am. I don’t know why, but for some reason I didn’t expect them to be there, or if they were, for them to be dull. I ran my finger across the tip and instantly drew blood. I had never done that before and was terrified of losing any more of my precious life source so I ferociously suckled the pinprick until the release had ceased. As I moved my hand down over my neck and once full-bodied beautiful upper torso I felt it now heaving and laboring to get each breath. The delicate thin hair that once covered it now gone, giving way to what now felt like leather. While I wanted to see how I looked, I could no longer over look my thirst. It was swelling my throat so I wasn’t sure that a single drop could pass through it. All I could want was blood.
Precious little time passed before she returned to me, cooing and soothing me with her voice as before. She knew my thirst and had brought me a victim. He was beaten down, but still very alive. With a firm grip she brought the frightened man to his knees and bound them together after tying his wrists behind his back. I reached out to take him and struck the vein with deadly accuracy. However, even through the bonds he was stronger than I and wiggled away. Michelle had stood by disapprovingly up to this point yet now moved toward me. With a quick twist of her wrist she snapped his neck and came to my side.
“I didn’t think that you had it in you to kill the innocent.”
Once more my voice did not seem to be my own. The quality was scratched and the act dreadfully painful.
“He was one of my attackers, actually, he was the one to give me this nasty scrape.”
I nodded. She went around behind me and placed my head in her lap. I could vividly hear the piercing of her flesh and could feel the blood rushing to my lips as she pressed the bend of her elbow to me. At first I tried to resist, but my primitive urges took over and I accepted the nourishment for my body. A tingling sensation ran through me like ice water in my veins. Yet quickly it was taken away.
“Tomorrow I will be better prepared my dear. Sleep now, try to rest and ease your pain. I will stay with you until you fall asleep.”
My eyes closed and I felt her combing through my hair with her delicate thin fingers and humming softly. Additional sleep does help to repair the body, but I didn’t want to sleep. I wanted to feel the pain, to feel the rebuilding process take place. I didn’t want to feel how I was for this mortal. ‘The last time you let yourself do this you ended up with an eternal companion that you can hardly enjoy.’ But no matter how hard I wanted to hang on to my consciousness, I fell into a deep sleep and didn’t rouse until the next night. Michelle was standing, more leaning against the closed door. Tonight a few sparse candles lit the room and I’m quite certain that she could not even see me through the darkness. But even with the little light I was blinded, the burn affected even my eyes.
“Are you awake?” She walked over to me and I caught her hand in mine.
“I am better prepared tonight.”
That is when I realized that an animal was lying on the floor sleeping. She drew away, hoisted the fattened lamb into her forearms, and walked quickly back to me.
“I know that human blood would repair you faster but we need you to rebuild some strength before you can hold them down. This is sedated, it shouldn’t even flinch, and I have another lamb outside. If you don’t want it I will just give it to one of the others.”
I didn’t wait for her to leave or even turn. But she didn’t shriek or stare in awe at my feeding. She simply shrank down to me and helped me to hold up my head to the dwindling sheep. About five minutes later she removed the lifeless corpse.
In those next few days we didn’t even speak to one another. A bond had begun between us within that first week in Dallas and now this silence between us was perfectly natural. Michelle was my one companion; she would sing me to sleep early in the evening after I had fed. Without a doubt the minute I fell asleep she moved on to the others. I often thought about Adrian, but I agreed with Michelle in not wanting him to see me this bad.
Finally, I woke alone. My skin was still rough but not totally scorched. My limbs where not as weak and my breath not so heavy as they had been that first night. I sat up on my own will, it was painful and straining, but the feeling of air on my back instead of the cold floor was truly refreshing. The door opened and her fragile figure appeared as a silhouette in the light. As she drew closer a soft smile spread wide across her face. It was the most beautiful smile that I have ever seen.
“I see that you are feeling a little better, that is good. Do you want to try to stand?”
I nodded as she extended her hand to support some of the weight. I leaned heavily on her as I struggled to my feet. At full height I surveyed the room to be smaller than I imagined. The walls were of crude concrete, which struck me strange since the floor was such smooth, cool, and expensive shale. There was absolutely no furniture in the room, only half burned candles scattered around in the floor and wax remnants where candles had been before. Michelle was still supporting me.
“Lets not overdo this in one night. Why don’t you lie back down?”
Once more I nodded. She caught both of my hands and helped me slowly to lower my body to the floor. Somehow, I turned wrong, lost my balance, and fell to the floor. Michelle fell on top of me. The pressure on my burns was excruciating but the warmth of her body, the softness of her skin struck me, and the wispy quality of her hair as it brushed my face. Without a single conscience thought I drew her even closer with my left arm and pressed against the back of her head with my right. Michelle’s flush face was against me, her supple lips directly touching mine. I felt the heartbeat in her chest quicken through her breasts, as they were tightly press to me. I slid my tongue into her hot mouth and explored the inside. Her boiling saliva trickled into my own mouth. I was suddenly aware of just how much I really wanted her, wanted her blood, wanted her body, wanted her to be mine.
Instantly I released. She backed away and stumbled to her feet. She retreated far enough that I could not read her face. Her voice was small and flustered, “Um, the pig is to your left. I will come take it after you go to sleep.”
Michelle was gone. While I could not blame her for being frightened, I didn’t want to be without her. I simply wanted her company, her fingers running through my hair, and her melody filling my ear. Finally I admitted it to myself - I wanted her. That night I slept with dreams of her. My Michelle standing before me at full stature in a full flowing gown of fashion’s richest past. Her hair fell around her perfect little face in tight ringlets that sprung up and down as she suddenly jolted into motion to approach me. She laid her perfect little fingers spaced wide across my chest as if to feel me in a deeper way. I pulled her closer holding around her perfect little waist. She began to lay exquisite little kissed on the exposed portion of my chest from where my shirt was open and gradually moved upward onto my neck and chin. One of her hands had moved around to the small of my back, feeling the taunt muscles contracting even tighter under her delicate touch. But then I saw my face. I saw hunger. I watched as this man in the dream who looked like me pulled at her, even as she struggled to get away. He was toying with her, allowing her to slip only so far from his grasp. The top half of the dress had ripped to pieces, leaving her exposed and writhing. Suddenly he seemed to tire of this game and pulled her in tightly and fed viciously from her neck.
Apparently I was stirring up quite a racket because I woke to Adrian calling my name. He didn’t touch me; I could tell he was afraid to. I could see the fear in his eyes of what I had become.
“Am I still that bad?”
Adrian just sat looking at me in awe. I could hardly see him in this room; he had left the door open so it was flooding with the yellow brightness. But I had healed enough to see that he was hardly harmed, it did little more than give him a glowing golden tan.
“Marcus, I had no idea it was this bad. Miss Justine said that you had burned a little and that you wanted a full recuperation period alone. She just left to retrieve more food for Lauren and Lafayette since my appetite tonight was a bit above normal. Then I heard you practically screaming down here and wasn’t going to subside. What’s wrong?”
“Bad Dream?”
“Want to talk about it?”
I started to tell him, tell him everything I was feeling for Michelle. Everything from what I was feeling for her, what I had just done to her, and the dream I had. But I stopped. When I began showing an interest in Lauren beyond one of protection Adrian became very jealous and almost killed him. I certainly didn’t need to be without a keeper at this point.
“No, it wasn’t too big of a deal.”
We continued to talk and easily agreed the other two should not see me for a while. He confirmed what Michelle had told me earlier that Lauren and Lafayette were hardly injured, that Lafayette was scarcely singed. Then a shadow filled the doorway, walked in, and slammed the door.
“Well, boys since you obviously are not going to sleep any extra tonight there are some things that I need to know.”
We both stared painfully. We knew that sometime we would probably need to tell Michelle about Ardeo, but never wanted to.
“That was not an attack of angry young vampires wanting to kill off and drink the blood of an older one. That attack on my home was well orchestrated and planned with human beings for Christ sake! You didn’t give me any knowledge that this was going to be part of the deal when I promised to protect you. Whom have you pissed off?”
Adrian knew, but didn’t say. It really wasn’t his story to tell.

Interested in reading more? Check out "Keeper of the Dead Chapter Four"