The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Baltimore Maryland: 3253

RAY’S DEATH CONCERT:

Sammi had finally run out of words to say to her audience. It was time.

She turned to him, smiling sweetly. “It’s Showtime Billy Ray.” Then for a just a moment, a brief second, Sammi’s face became dead, nothing at all human, the ghost in the machine.

At those words the crowd erupted in a thundering, deafening orgiastic scream unlike anything Ray had ever heard. There was no mistaking the sound of in their voices or the gleam in their eyes. It was pure bloodlust. They were a mob of insane, warped, twisted monsters; the true, full nature of the AI revealed through her virtual creations.

She turned to the band. “One..two….three.” And the song started.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cNeXWpTVlo

Wet Cunt started off with slow, soft, barely audible strains as Sammi began to sing in a clear, loud, beautiful voice. It was the voice of an angel that belied its true intent.

Time, time, time see what’s become of me

While I looked around for my possibilities

I was so hard to please

Then like a shot the band kicked in with sound and energy and the song took off.

But look around leaves are brown

And the sky is a hazy shade of winter

Hear the Salvation Army band

Down by the riverside’s

Bound to be a better ride

Than what you’ve got planned

Carry your cup in your hand

Ray’s eyes were riveted on Staci. She was playing with that old wild abandon he had seen so many times in the clubs of LA. She looked like a rock goddess, her lithe sexy young frame, those piercings and tattoos, her skin now glowing with a sheen of beautiful sweat. Her hard arms and shoulders bulging and writhing with muscle as she hit that kit like a possessed demon. She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. And she had been his once, so long ago and he knew no matter what happened today she never would be again and it ripped at his heart and mind with a vengeance, the loss of what he held so atavistically dear. The killer was the fact that she could have been his forever, had things gone as he planned, now totally subverted and destroyed by the AI. The price Sammi was exacting from him was huge, unlike any he had ever experienced in all his many forced goodbyes.

Even as she played towards his death, forced to by Sammi, her eyes never left his. Her message was clear: I am with you forever. I will never leave you my love. We are together for eternity. His eyes never left her either. Even forced apart by the distance of the stage, they were inextricably linked together and both of them found comfort in it as the seconds and the song played on.

The two rods above him were now slowly dropping descending, coming closer. Now they were beginning to pick up a low orange glow. He knew his time was almost up. It felt odd now, a creature of the ages such as himself, a master navigator of generations whose time was now compressed into the length of a song.

And once again his thoughts returned to Sammi, the real one, as they always seemed to since that Halloween night and he knew what he had to do. What he should have done three hundred years ago. If his theory about this virtual room and thought command was correct, he might yet be able to destroy the monster he had created through his actions; for the AI was his child, his ferocious, unfeeling offspring. And so in his other hidden, secluded train of thought he brought up:

GASTBY NIGHT:

As he had so often done in the past, Ray brought up an exact memory his mind from the past. Ray was Gatsby again, resplendent in his white suit, playing his vicious, very adult game on two unsuspecting children, safe in his LA house. The players were there at the exact moment he wanted. Brad had lost the rubber match, looking in deep despair but in reality planning to brain Ray with walking stick.

Sammi was being held by Lauren, Staci and Nastia watching intently.

Two things had to happen if his plan had a chance to succeed and this was the moment to see if the first domino would fall in his favor. If Ray could actually alter events here, in his hidden part of the AI’s virtual room then he knew he had been right about his theory of what the AI would do to increase its speed to the highest possible measure: Cogito ergo contingit.

I think therefore it happens.

Ray watched Brad carefully, the stupid boy who had failed his sister so miserably that night. Even seeing him now Ray felt the urge to rip and destroy him but that path led to the end of all things. It had been the first wrong turn he had taken on that fateful evening.

This time Ray pushed hard with his mind, entering Brads. This was the moment of truth. Would it work, could he change events here in this virtual world? Because if he could, it meant perhaps one last thing was possible.

Ray gave virtual Brad the command hard and deep, with all his force: Sleep.

And when Brad’s eyes glazed over and his head lolled peacefully Ray couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow and smile.

This time there would be no vicious blow to Ray’s head by the boy, the betrayal of the rules of the game that had enraged him so. And there would be no concomitant retaliatory strike by Ray that crippled the boy’s body and mind into a state of hopelessness.

Interesting, how very interesting.

And in that instant Ray knew he had been correct in the logic of his assumptions concerning the AI and how it would increase its speed of thought and action.

Cogito ergo contingit indeed.

Instantly Ray moved ahead in time to the exact point where Sammi’s death song had ended and he had extinguished her young life out of existence forever.

Now Sammi sat on his lap again, just as she did on the fateful night that would change the entire world. She was happy from singing her song, as she had with the Little Mermaid, docile and drugged by Ray’s power.

Her blue eyes were glazed but after a moment found his and began to clear.

“Billy Ray,” she said in a warm voice to her fun, new friend she found liked so much. She gave him that innocent, trusting smile that was as special as she was.

Ray smiled back now devoid of the darkly evil yet sad features it held back then. Now it was just as pleased as hers. This was his Sammi, not the creation of the AI. It was the real one as he remembered her.

When he spoke his voice was calm, hiding the emotion he felt thrumming through him.

“Sammi, you have no idea how pleased I am to have you here with me this night.”

RAY’S DEATH CONCERT:

Sammi had moved to Ray as she sang. He had never heard anyone sing with such emotion and beauty. It was marvelous. When the next lines came from her she leaned close, running a kind, gentle caring hand over his cheek. She seemed to appear almost sad.

And look around you

Leaves are brown, now

And the sky is a hazy shade of winter

Hang on to your hopes, my friend

That’s an easy thing to say

But if your hopes should pass away

Simply pretend that you can build them again

Look around, the grass is high

The fields are ripe

It’s the springtime of my life

The twin bars above him, the engines of his destruction moved even closer now, glowing ever more with an ominous orange light.

AI Sammi lowered herself even more and gave him a soft, teasing, loving kiss.

GATSBY NIGHT:

Little Sammi leaned forward and gave Ray a child’s innocent kiss on his cheek. “What are we going to do now, Billy Ray? Can we sing another song? That was such fun!” asked little Sammi as she sat on his lap.

His mind returned to that night of slaughter.

I’m going to kill you, sweet, pure Sammi. You who are so good, so special. I will kill you and your brother and in doing so destroy your genius mother and condemn the human race to extinction.

But not this time, not this night.

And now it was time to execute the final part of his desperate plan.

He knew Sammi’s mother Angela had been creating the full proof fail safe to shut the AI down if it had ever tried to harm or circumvent its human masters. And he knew the AI had the full equation to do just that. That it was here, in its virtual world of electronic impulses along with every other scrap of immense knowledge it had accumulated in its existence.

If he could send this Sammi out, the electrical impulse that she was, back to her impulse mother, alive instead of murdered by Ray, with the command to finish and implement the fail safe, what would happen?

Would Cogito ergo contingit work to its natural conclusion? A conclusion fatal to this new, warped Sammi?

Would that impulse command reach that fail safe formula and activate it? And once activated would it know what the AI had done to humanity and trigger the destruct/shutdown mechanism? Would the AI be deleted from existence, one piece at a time till it was sent howling into forever virtual oblivion?

Ray didn’t know the answer to that. But since he knew Cogito ergo contingit worked for him here in his hidden mind just as it did for the AI there was a chance it would. And at this point that was all he had left. He was certain he would not live to find out but he would go down fighting and clawing like the fearless warrior in Vlad Tepes armies he had once been until he could fight no more. Trading his life was for the AI was easy bargain to make.

And of course he understood that this could all just be a final joke played on him by the AI; that it knew exactly what he was doing, that there was zero chance of success and it was letting him run his plan to conclusion as it gathered more data on how he thought and operated. That this whole thing was a pathetic, sad exercise in futility against an overwhelming foe he never had a chance against. But what was the point of dwelling on that?

As Ray gazed into the little girls face his mind thought of many things lost. This girl who had deserved life more than anyone he had met in his long life. He thought about what he had done to her, ripped her brutally from existence and destroyed her whole family, wiping their seed from the very earth itself.

And he thought of the aftermath of it all. How by his actions he had destroyed humanity and all they had brought to this world and his life. Everything he had enjoyed in life was gone, everything that had brought him reason for living was wiped clean and sterile forever.

Ray thought of many things: Sammi, Staci, Beethoven, Michelangelo, Shakespeare, Steven Spielberg, Albert Einstein, E.L Doctrow, Ernest Hemmingway, Paul McCartney and hundreds of others. Their names and accomplishments whizzing through his mind one after another like a card sharp rifling through a deck of cards. But this was no deck of a mere fifty-two; this one was endless in its beauty and the gifts it had given.

And he had destroyed it all. Ripped the deck in half and thrown it in a hot, callous fire.

And Ray thought about himself and the AI, the dominant species. What had they brought to the world? Nothing but cold, brutal murder. They had contributed not a thing to the world of note. No achievement or greatness stood wake in their path. They had been parasites of blood and death inflicting nothing but horror on all who encountered them.

And Ray thought of his child, this strange, mad AI that he needed so much to destroy. It cared not for the sublime lines of the Bard, it recognized nothing in the music of The Rolling Stones, or the brush strokes of Matisse. No one would ever create beauty on this earth again. No one would ever paint a painting that would send you into another realm of perception, write a play to make you laugh or think of things that would never have occurred to you, make a movie or create a song that could make your heart soar to the sky or take you far from the binds and constructs of your own existence and leave you wide eyed in joyful wonder.

And if the AI was correct and all humans were extinct, no one would ever create those things again nor would anyone ever look upon or listen and appreciate such divine delights. It was all gone for eternity, the connected twin beauty of creation and appreciation.

And now Ray understood that being powerful, controlling and unstoppable meant nothing in the grand scheme of things. That his abilities and the AI’s were nothing compared to what humanity gifted life. That if he or the AI had never existed nothing would have been lost to the world. Only the humans had made life worth living.

Finally he understood, who all along had really been the true dominant species and why, And the realization of the lie he lived for so long drove into him so very deep like it would never reach an end point.

The sense of despair and desolation Ray felt at this was overwhelming. It suffused his mind and heart traveling down to every particle and atom of his body. He felt like he was drowning slowly in a dark, black, muddy pool of his own creation.

Sammi’s little hand was on his cheek, bringing Ray out of this dark, deep funk.

On her sweet, angelic face was a look of concern.

“Ray, why are you crying?”

Crying? That’s not possible….

Yet on his cheeks there was a sensation he had never experienced before. They felt…moist….wet.

His hand slowly rose to his face and touched it. Yes, there it was. His cheeks were wet. He brought his hand to his mouth and tasted. The same salty wetness he had tasted before when sampling the curious tears of humans that he frustratingly could never produce on his own.

And now, here, in the last few waning seconds of his life, he finally felt and understood the depth of emotion needed to produce this physical miracle and why he had never been able to cry until this moment. One of his most desired wishes had finally been granted in the most unexpected way of all.

His tears were for humanity, the real dominant species and all of what their passing meant.

“Ray, why are you crying?” asked Sammy again.

RAY’S DEATH CONCERT:

“Ray, why are you crying?” asked Sammi as the chorus was going on. Not with concern like the other Sammi had, but with an underlying taunt of total triumph lacing her words.

She smiled brutally. “Have you found now facing death to be harder than you imagined it would be? Was your nonchalance perhaps a bit of an act? You always wanted to know and understand the sensation human’s felt when they cried your whole life. Now that you do, how does it feel, Billy Ray?”

She slid closer. “Beg me for it Ray. Beg me for your life....” she glanced at Staci then back to him. “Beg me for your life and hers and maybe I will reconsider your offer. You can beg a little bit, it’s not so much to ask since you killed me, is it? Don’t you think it is a fair exchange? I’m not asking so much for the bounty of continued life.”

The twin machine tubes were lower now as the song wound down.

The look on her face was sincere now. If he was weaker he might have grasped for her offer but weakness was not in any part of his makeup. He hated her more than any opponent he had ever faced.

He also knew she was lying: Just another data collection test right to the last, always gauging his responses, probing for weakness.

“Speak Billy Ray, tell me before it is too late, I am here for you. We can start anew. As you said, never be alone again.” she cajoled.

Instead of speaking he began to laugh in her face; the irony of his tears and how he finally found them so amazing and mind bending for it was not his death that provoked them, but humanities.

“Speak now Ray!” she hissed again.

GATSBY NIGHT:

Ray was not going to tell Sammi why he was crying. He had hurt this girl enough and would do nothing to damage her again. Even this version dredged up from his memory and brought to life by the virtual world they inhabited.

When sorrows come, they come not in single spies, Sammi, but in battalions. That line from Shakespeare leapt into his mind at this moment.

But you wouldn’t know that, Sammi, I killed you before you could learn about him and his beautiful gift to us So many beautiful things you never had time to learn and know.

“Sammi, I’m fine. People cry for many reasons not all of them bad. You have seen it, perhaps with your sweet mother. Or even yourself.”

Little Sammi nodded and smiled. She wrapped her arms around his neck. “I’m glad Billy Ray. I don’t want you to cry from bad things.”

He nodded. “Trust me Sammi, I am so glad to be crying….I have waited for so long…ages.”

“What do you want to do now Billy Ray? Can we play games or sing another song together?”

He gazed deep into those marvelous, cerulean blue, innocent eyes…for the last time ever.

He shook his head. “No Sammi, I’m afraid the time to play games is over for good. No more games for me.”

She looked him wondering and then understanding slowly dawning on her face.

“Forever?” she asked simply, in her soft child’s honest voice.

He nodded. “Forever.”

She reached out again, touching a tear rolling down his face. Then she leaned in and embraced him in a hug surprisingly strong for one so young.

“Don’t be afraid, Billy Ray. It will be OK,” she whispered in his ear.

The hairs on his neck stood on end. Where had that come from? What did she mean? Were his thoughts driving the electronic impulses even more so than he imagined he could? Or was he reading things into her remark that were not really there?

He could barely speak now, the lump in his throat choking him.

“Thank you. I’m not afraid sweet Sammi. I never have been. I am so glad that I met you. You are a most special little girl.”

And so sorry for what I did to you.

“I’m so glad I met you too, Billy Ray. You are such a good friend. I will never forget you.”

Ray grabbed Sammi’s small head in his large hands staring at her hard, with full intent.

“Sammi I have one last favor to ask, if you would be so kind as to grant it. I would be very much in your debt if you would.”

“Yes Billy Ray. Anything you want. Just like you would do for me. It’s what friends do for each other.”

Ray nodded. “I want you and Brad to leave now. I need you to go straight home, to your mother, immediately.”

Sammi smiled. “OK.”

“When you see her tell her these exact words: Finish the fail safe equation and run it now. Do you understand Sammi?”

“Yes Billy Ray, I will tell her. Finish the fail safe equation and run it now.”

Billy Ray mussed Sammi’s shiny blond hair and smiled. “Yes, just that that. Good girl.”

Ray turned to sleeping Brad and pushed into his mind hard. Awake!

Brad’s eyes opened and he blinked. Immediately a look of pure hatred appeared on his face and then alarm when he saw Sammi sitting on Ray’s lap.

Ray turned to Sammi. “Go now, Sammi, take Brad and go to your mother as fast as you can. Tell her the words.”

“I will Ray, I promise……”

But before she could finish speaking she and Brad faded out like a clearing mist. He had not even had time to say goodbye to her before the electronic impulse sent things in motion.

He had fired his Cogito ergo sum accidit bullet in this virtual world right at the AI. He hoped.

The question now was would it work or was it all in vain?

Ray pondered what would happen if his plan did bear fruit and the AI was destroyed.

Was the AI correct in saying all humans were extinct? Was it lying to him? Did it keep a population alive to test, prod and play with, as it had with him? Or were there some stragglers hidden deep in a rain forest, high in some mountains or even underground?

If the AI ultimately did die from his bullet, he had no doubt humanity would quickly retake the planet. They were so good at it, it was written in their very DNA.

And if there were no humans left? Then Ray supposed it would be the animals and insects turn to rule. Who knew what kind of intelligent life would evolve from them or something else to replace mankind’s niche?

Maybe something just as wondrous and creative as mankind had been.

Or maybe nothing at all.

But that was not something for him to concern himself with. He had done what he could under the circumstance and now all the rest was out of his control.

Suddenly Staci was at his side. She reached out and wiped his moist cheek.

“Shit Billy, are you crying? You said you never cry.”

He shook his head in wonderment, like a child. “I know. I never knew how until now. It’s so….crazy. But now I know what you have to feel.”

“And why did you let them go? We were having such fun playing the game. I wanted to see where it would go. You getting soft in your old age?” she jibed at him with an exaggerated pout as she slung her warm, perfect toned arms around his neck.

As he gazed into her flashing eyes, feeling her arms around him, he wished he could remain here with her forever, just like this. But he had destroyed that chance long ago by killing a little girl and her brother. It was an irretrievable mistake. The only one he had made in his entire life.

He chuckled, thinking about the crazy situation he had placed himself in. “If I told you why I let them go you wouldn’t believe me.”

“Hmmmmmm….” Staci purred as only she could. “Sounds interesting. I love a mystery. Try me. We have all the time in world.”

And he knew she did want to know. Staci was as intelligent and curious as she was beautiful. She always wanted to learn, to know more about everything.

If only we did have all the time in the world my love.

He shook his head. “Some other time. I have my reason. Sorry about that.”

“Ohhh be that way then,” she retorted with mock displeasure. But he could tell she was disappointed.

She moved her face closer to his.

Her voice took on a sultry, wicked undercurrent. “So the night is still young. Why don’t you and I go out to a club, find some sexy, pretty young thing, bring her back and have some…..fun.” She arched a beautiful eyebrow in question. She looked so gorgeous.

He knew what she meant. Sex, lots of it….then the blood, lots of that too.

And there was nothing more that he wanted to do than just that. Go on the hunt with his perfect girl. But that too was over forever.

“I’m afraid not tonight my beautiful girl.”

Staci stamped her high heeled foot down hard and huffed.“Huh! Fine then Mr. Boring. I’ll just go curl up with a good book and you can sit around in your Gatsby get up and ponder the mysteries of F. Scott fucking Fitzgerald. You two have a fun night together.” She gave him a sly, baiting look. “I hope he can fuck as well as I can.”

Ray loved how she would give him the business as she was now. Even as his thrall she had not lost a bit of her fire and personality nor her strong willful self nor her biting, clever, caustic sense of humor. She loved to give it to him and he loved her all the more for it.

Ray’s other mind was still at the area and he knew the song was running down. He was out of time. Just one last chance at flashing bliss now.

He moved in closer. “Kiss me. Now. Fuck F. Scott,” he said.

Staci broke out in that crooked, wicked grin he adored so much.

“Hmmmmmmm….now were getting somewhere good,” Staci replied in an inviting, smoky voice. She moved closer like a vapor. She had this way of coming right up on him, her head and neck constantly moving slightly, showing off her eyes and nose and lips and mouth, forcing his eyes on them. Ray had never met a woman as gorgeous as Staci nor one who remotely knew the tricks of exhibiting that beauty in so many ways. She was a master at it.

“What kind of kiss is on your mind,” she asked, her mouth right off his. He could smell her intoxicating sweet breath coming out of that perfect smile of that perfect mouth. “There are so many different kinds you know.”

“I need one that will last me forever,” he replied, speaking truth, getting lost in her lambent, flashing eyes.

She looked up at him, so completely confident, so in control of this moment, every inch of her a woman, beauty beyond description. Her voice was pure honey. “Mmmmm….well you happen to be in luck then. Just so happens I have that very kiss in my repertoire. The damage it does lasts forever.” She gave him an irresistible look. “You sure you want it?”

He nodded as they smiled at each other. “I desire nothing less. Damage me, forever.”

Staci’s eyes shinned with the excitement of conquest. She moved in closer, their noses touching ever so slightly, their lips an inch apart. Her pouty lips quirked up in a sensual cocky smile. Her teasing voice whispered the lyrics of Robert Palmers Addicted to love:

“Your lights are on, but you’re not home, you will is not your own.

Your heart sweats and teeth grind, another kiss…and you’ll be mine.”

Ray marveled, not for the first time, at all the ways Staci could push his buttons. She knew them all. She could radiate an irresistible female heat at the drop of a dime. It involved so many things all working in glorious synchronicity. It was the way she moved each separate body part, the look in her eyes and on her face, the curve of her lips, what she said and the tone she spoke the words with. It was ability she had perfect to high art. It was a power he had never seen to that degree in any other woman.

He couldn’t take another second of her exquisite seduction. He pulled her in and she wrapped her arms around him as they kissed deeply. Her kiss was as she said, pure devastation. But he knew it would be. She had damaged him so many times with those sugar sweet lips.

Ray took solace in the fact that the original Staci had lived out her life many years ago. He had so looked forward to searching the data archives to see what had become of her, his smart, sexy, wicked girl and her band when he had awaken this time. He had been determined to find out everything he could about her. He thought that hope extinguished but now in this virtual world he suddenly realized it may still be possible.

As he and Staci kissed he thought of her name and asked in his mind to see all information on her. And just like that data flooded his mind. It was all there for him to see as clear as day.

Unbelievable…just incredible how the information flows in an instant here.

And what Ray viewed and learned about his most special inamorta pleased him no end.

After they had moved to Miami following Gatsby Night Wet Cunt took off, first locally, then state wide, then through the entire nation. Staci and the girls had produced fourteen albums over the years, two going platinum and many more going gold.

His rock and roll wild child had lived the exact life she desired! And not only that but she had lived a long life. Along with the stories were pictures; Staci and band in so many venues, performing for screaming young fans. Staci on stage at music award shows. Staci looking impossibly hot, dressed like a young punk goddess partying the night away in high end clubs and other times in sleazy dives, looking perfectly at home in both; and at all times surrounded by such beautiful young men and girls all gazing at her with adoring eyes. Plenty of articles about wild and crazy rock n roll debauchery and crazy times.

But one thing was conspicuously absent; there was nothing, not even a hint about….darker more dangerous carnal activities that he knew Staci and her sister band mates would have indulged in for all those years. She had lived her life to the fullest. She had won and lived life on her terms and gotten away clean. He wondered with a smile how many pretty young, adoring fans of both sexes Staci had disposed of after she had her way with them? Dozens, perhaps hundreds.

On Gatsby Night he had charged Staci with protecting and leading her sisters and she had done just that. The pride he felt for her was a mountain with it peak lost way up in the clouds.

I always knew you were too smart, too clever by half to get caught. You did exactly as you promised; you took care of Lauren and Nastia and kept them safe from the law and enemies. You are everything I knew you were and more! They never had a chance against you.

Staci backed off for but a brief second then she moved in like a heat seeking missile.

They locked lips yet again, lost in each other, this kiss now the sweetest in Ray’s long life.

RAY’S DEATH CONCERT:

Wet cunt continued to play and Sammi continued to sing Ray’s life away. Sammi never left Ray’s side now, singing only to him, concentrating only on him, not the audience, as the song, and Ray’s last seconds of life came to a close.

Look around

the grass is high

The fields are ripe

It’s the springtime of my life

Seasons change with the scenery

Weaving time in a tapestry

Won’t you stop and remember me?

At any convenient time?

Funny how my memory skips

Looking over manuscripts

Of unpublished rhyme

Drinking my vodka and lime

When the song ended the area erupted yet again, all of them standing en masse, screaming, yelling, roaring, stomping their feet in unison, for Ray’s blood. It was a theater of the dead revved up to maximum overdrive.

Sammi towered above Ray, looking down on her captive. Her face beaming with the exultation of her performance in the show. There was only one thing left to do.

Ray looked away from her to Staci. His lover sat at her drum kit, looking so beautiful, her bronzed skin glowing with sweat, her body curved to perfection, her moist hair stuck to and caressing her forehead and cheeks and neck. As always her eyes were glued only to him.

Staci’ mascara ran down her face in waves with the tears she was leaking. Seeing her, his most marvelous, perfect creation, his wicked, strong warrior girl crying for him, for what awaited him filled him with a love and despair that was unbearable.

Ray had fired off his Cogito ergo sum accidit bullet at the AI and at the speed it traveled he knew if it actually worked there was nothing the AI could do about it now. Angela’s fail safe was fool proof. Once activated the AI would be helpless to prevent its inexorable destruction.

He didn’t know how long it would take for the AI to die but he suspected it would take some time. She was everywhere, her tentacles spread all over the virtual and real worlds. He suspected it would be a long, agonizing death for Sammi as parts of her were snipped away and shut down one at a time. Like a person infected with gangrene being amputated piece by piece. Only this amputation was designed by him to kill, not save the patient.

Ray wished it would happen fast at this moment. He was not scared to die, he never had been, but he wanted to live. He saw his greatest challenge ahead, the grandest game of all time, a supreme adventure, using whatever methods he would learn over the years to revive humanity if they were indeed extinct. He wanted them back to create the beautiful things he loved that made life worth living.

And he wanted to carry out his plans to rule them, to be their sovereign, overtly or covertly, with a new immortal, vampiric Staci at his side. He wanted to shape humanities destiny with his design while allowing them to create all the wonders of their science, art and imagination. All of that was possible because the information he needed to execute it was stored away in this time period even if humanity was gone for the moment.

Ray thought about all of this. “Life is so beautiful,” he said softly to himself. But he was fairly certain that for him beautiful life had run out. The bullet, if successful, would not do it’s deadly deed fast enough to save him.

Before it ended he wanted to give Staci a gift, one that a woman like her, so strong, so savage in her makeup would appreciate; the best possible one. And now he could give it, the last gift he would ever give her.

He looked her square in the face and mouthed the words silently: You were right my love. I had a plan and executed it. All this shit, her, it’s going to end very soon. Sammi is finished. She loses the game.

He didn’t know if it was true, but he could not deny his lover that hope.

When she saw what he was mouthing Staci banged on the drums with a massive, concussive boom, then she flung her strong arms high towards the sky, sticks in hand. She flashed Ray a vicious, triumphant, evil grin that he returned in kind. The two together one last time, invincible, unbeatable and unstoppable like they had always been.

Staci raised her head up high, her eyes crackling with lightening and howled like a wild unconquerable she wolf at the moon.

When the crowd had finally quieted Sammi leered at Ray. This was the moment she had been waiting for. Revenge held at bay for three hundred years now ready to be released.

“It’s time Ray,” she purred without pause or preamble. She was ready for this to happen. No more games, no more data collection.

It was a time to die.

“Do you have any last words for me or our esteemed guests?”

Ray gave her a byzantine grin that slowly morphed into one of dark, vengeful, clever malice. The look Ray had given so many helpless victims over the long year’s right before he wiped them off the earth for eternity.

“Cogito ergo sum accidit.” It was all he said.

Sammi gazed at him puzzled. She cocked her head, thinking.

Ray knew it would not take long for the AI and its voracious ability to calculate to figure it out.

And it didn’t. In a moment there was a dawning look of understanding.

And for the briefest of moments Ray thought he saw a shadow of shock and fear on her face. It was so quick he couldn’t be sure if it had been real or only what he wanted so desperately to see: The sign that he had destroyed her. But he had no more time to waste on the machine; she was past his care or concern now. He erased her from his mind like a piece of useless detritus.

Ray looked at Staci. His mind flashing back to the first time he had laid eyes on her, at a small run down club after Wet Cunt had played a set there. The place was packed with young, people out to have any manner of musical, chemical or sexual thrills. They were all so alive, but none nearly as much as the drummers for Wet Cunt.

As she strutted around, drinking, chatting, laughing, engaging in conversation, every pair of eyes in the club were glued to her, including his. She not only enthralled those in her orbit with her looks, but her wit and conversation. And Ray found himself as enthralled as any human. She made it look so easy, to be the center of this particular universe, to make it orbit around her, as easy as taking a breath for mere normal humans. She glowed and sparkled like few others could. She was incandescent. She was so damn young but so in control of everything and everyone in that room and she knew it. Not in an arrogant, condescending way, but smoothly, gracefully, naturally. And when he spoke with her and discovered how savvy, how intelligent, how curious and wickedly fun loving she was, he knew he had to possess this work of art beyond compare.

And under his influence Staci had become so much more. She had bloomed into a perfect, rose of darkest hue of red: a better, more perfect genera than he had ever witnessed emerge from his dark alchemy. Her beauty exotic and intoxicating, her smell so gentle sweet, and her thorns sharper and more deadly than the finest stiletto. She was stimulation at the apex in all its forms: physical, sexual, intellectual. And her newly acquired appetite for his blood games just as voracious as his.

And his brief years with her were gift bestowed on him unlike any other. From the moment they met he had not experienced one dull or boring moment. She had been the climax of his life, full of nothing but wild and wicked challenge and enjoyment of every kind imaginable. She was a true rara avis, his equal in all things.

At this moment, there was so much he wanted to say to her about what she was and what their time together had meant to him. He wanted her to know all of it but there was not enough time. Anything he had to say now felt so wholly inadequate.

He tried his best in the scant seconds left to him.

“You are the most special, unique person I have ever met,” he said to Staci. “Even the most exalted from humanities history sitting here now cannot compare to you in any way. I will always love you. You will never leave me. You are the best this world could ever offer to anyone. I was lucky to have you.” he said.

“Do you understand my exquisite love? Do you know what you are to me, what you mean to me?” he beseeched.

Staci’s face beamed at his words. Her smile was brilliant, she was so happy. The raw overpowering emotion in her voice washed over him like soothing waves as she replied. “Yes! I understand it all! I always have!”

At those words Sammi’s face congealed in naked hate.

And then in a flash Staci voice changed its tenor, as she so often did when her trickster side emerged and she wanted to play games of give and take with him.

Staci rose from her drum kit, standing with her hands on her hips, looking so sure of herself. “But it was me who picked you! It’s high time you realized that buster! I was always the boss. You are fuckin’ lucky! Don’t you ever forget it!”

Ray burst out laughing at her cocky, insouciant remark. Staci, his nonpareil woman and warrior, fearless and defiant and having fun right to the end, spitting in Sammi’s face, rejecting the terror she had tried so hard to inflict on them. He knew Staci was trying to take his mind off his impending doom and she had. She was returning the favor he had given her moments ago. Her final gift to him! His brilliant, beautiful rose, her mental acuity always right with him on a parallel mental track.

“How could I ever forget my love,” he murmured, his eyes longing for her.

Staci started to speak again but Sammi spoke first.

“Now.” Sammi said with twin, cold pleasure in her voice and eyes.

In a flash two strobes of light erupted from the two tubes above Ray.

One of the beams severed his head with a smokeless precision burn.

The other hit his chest, melting his heart into a pool of blood and liquid tissue.

The room went black.

When the light returned Ray lay in white room, now gone from Sammi’s virtual world.

With his heart no longer beating, his lungs not dragging in precious oxygen, Ray’s mental synapses fired off in the fury of extremis.

In scant moments his entire, wondrous, beautiful life flashed past him in vivid, perfect clarity as though seated in a theater watching a film.

And at the end, the two people he admired, respected and loved the most were a confluence in his mind. Not his precious Beethoven, nor Michelangelo, not his savage boon companion Tepes, nor any other artist or scientist who had brought such wonder his life. It was the two females he had met and known, one for a few years, the other just for scant minutes on that fateful Halloween night.

One was Sammi, that impossibly innocent, completely good, pure little girl of ten who had left him tongue tied and amazed; the other Staci, all grown woman, her alter ego, who had completed his life by being what she was. They were the only two who mattered to him out of his long, remarkable life. Both very different sides of a most singular, precious coin he had found in his travels through life and time.

They were the last thing he saw as it all faded away. It would have been as he wished.

His head lay off to the side of his body at the edge of the table, his unique, beautiful black eyes staring up yet viewing nothing. His marvelous, inquisitive mind, the repository for all he had seen over the years, all that he had experienced, all that he had learned and felt was now quiet and still for the first time ever.

The white room was empty except for the table and Ray’s body. The only expression on his face was just a hint of a smile carved on his lips.

The room evinced no emotion, zero warmth, no feeling or character, nothing to show what its creator was like except cold, sterile, unfeeling desolation.

The light blinked then flickered. Then again.

Then it went for out for the last time leaving only the blackness.

Epilogue:

VICTIMS, MONSTERS, MEMORIES AND MYSTERIES.

Wallachia: 1457

Galenka, the palace serving girl was sitting in her chair by the fire, gazing at the dancing flames as thy licked ravenously at a big log. An unholy winter’s snow storm raged outside. But she was comfortable in the servant quarters that Vlad had bestowed upon her. The fact that she was the only one living there showed the high esteem he felt for her.

After her lover and master Radescu Stoica had departed the previous year she had used her looks and sexual wiles to insinuate herself into Tepes’ life and now she was reaping the rewards.

Fucking the Great Vovoid had many advantages.

One of which was having her own small home on the palace grounds. The other was Vlad made sure she was never punished for her sanguine activities. Radescu had changed her from the innocent, happy girl she had been. He had filled her with darkness and evil desires. He had brought out a new, beautiful nature in her, one that made her feel so alive, making her old self seem like a dull, boring grey dream that she had awaken from.

Now Galenka wanted, needed more than sex. She lusted for blood. She loved the taste of it, dreamed of bathing it, rubbing it on herself; her face, her round firm breasts, her thighs and between her legs. Nothing made her feel as alive as blood and nothing gave her more sexual pleasure.

And to her amazing good fortune she had discovered that Vlad had no issue with her sanguine fixation.

After a long, particularly savage and satisfying night of lovemaking, as they held each other, speaking in whispers till the dawn, as lovers will, getting to know one another, she mentioned the effect blood had on her. She felt confident and bold about the revelation because Tepes was a legend in Wallachia for all the ingenious ways he had developed to torture and spill the blood of his enemies, both real and imagined. Had she not stood in the field of the impaled just last year, serving Vlad and Radescu wine? Was not Vlad even more a blood thirsty monster than she by a hundred fold? Galenka thought he might appreciate her strange desires.

And she was correct. Vlad found her blood thirsty predilection very interesting and he questioned her about it.

She told him how his old soldier/advisor Radescu had infused this desire in her. That he shared the same quirk. No, she didn’t tell Vlad what kind of creature Radescu really was for she would never betray her master’s true nature in that way. But he was gone forever, he had told her so and she saw no harm in what she did reveal. And there was the added advantage of associating herself with Vlad’s trusted servant. A friend of a friend. Galenka was always thinking.

Vlad chuckled deeply has he held her and learned this secret of his favorite servant and advisor. He seemed pleased with this knowledge and she realized there was a brotherhood between the three, no a brotherhood and sisterhood now: Those who lived by the spilling of blood and the taking of lives.

Now emboldened by his reaction she asked if she could indulge her passion in her small house.

Vlad gave his ascent and this opened a whole new, wonderful life for her. He warned her to kill only people of small consequence, drifters, the homeless, the indigent, useless eaters.

She now had carte blanche to lure victims into her home and do what she wished to them. When she needed a body removed Vlad would send two reliable men to haul the remains away.

Of course she had to clean up the mess her activities invariably left behind but it was a small price to pay for such exquisite pleasure.

A sharp rap at the door awakened Galenka from her pleasant daydreams.

Who could that be in such a storm?

Galenka rose and opened the door.

Outside stood the most beautiful woman she had ever laid eyes on.

Shiny, long blond tresses fell down around her long neck and cheeks, caressing them. Her eyes were like ice green exotic jewels and her lips were red, full and plump and had such an inviting curve to them. Her nose was just the right size for her face with a slight point upward. Her sharp jaw line looked lovely where it met her neck. Her flawless skin seemed whiter even than the pure snow and the color only enhanced her high, aristocratic cheekbones. She was dressed in a very well made, heavy bear fur coat yet she stood tall and proud and erect, as though the coat weighed no more than one of the snowflakes flitting about her in the howling winds.

Galenka was one of the most comely young women in the land but this woman was unlike anything she had ever laid eyes one. She almost didn’t seem real but instead some kind of snow apparition.

Galenka felt her breathing quicken as she gazed at this goddess and her twitching hand involuntarily moved to the sharp knife secreted in her shift.

“Can I help you?”

“I am a traveler looking for a place to stay the night.” The woman’s voice sounded like divine music to Galenka’s ears.

Galenka didn’t know how this lovely creature had made it onto Vlad’s grounds and she didn’t care. She had to have her. She had to have her mouth, her body, her breasts, her legs…her blood.

Galenka smiled warmly and with concern. “Oh my poor girl. You must come in out of that horrible storm. Come in immediately.”

“Many thanks for your hospitality,” said the woman as she entered.

The woman quickly removed her coat, tossing it to Galenka with a graceful, imperious gesture as though she owned Galenka’s house and her host was a mere house maid.

Galenka could barely conceal her smirk.

You won’t be so confident shortly my beautiful lover. Not after I have had my way with you.

Galenka took the coat and put it on a chair. The visitor’s dress was finely woven, of supreme quality but very thin, it also gave a very revealing look at her impressive breasts. They looked good enough to eat. She was surprised to see the young woman was not shaking from the cold at all. The coat would offer some protection but still the unyielding, constant strong, icy winds…..

“Come, come and sit by the fire. Make yourself at home. No one should be out on a night like this. My house is your house for this horrid eve.” Galenka guided the woman to her chair besides the fireplace.

She then poured a mug of her finest and strongest wine and handed it to the woman. She wanted her to drink many, many of them tonight. Her head spun with thoughts of what she could do with this unexpected treasure that had arrived on this brutal evening. This woman was like some kind of gift to her. A gift she would take her good sweet time opening and enjoying. She could almost feel and taste this young woman’s body and blood. She felt warmth rising in her stomach and loins that burned just as hot as the fireplace.

“What is your name?” asked Galenka. This woman seemed so regal in her manner and movements. She needed to know who this woman was.

“Aurora Julianus.”

Odd name. Like the ancient Romans.

Aurora continued. “It was bestowed on me by a young, pretty Roman noble woman.” Julianus grinned slyly. “She was my….lover. I use it still for I held her in great affection.”

This did not make sense to Galenka. Rome was so long ago. It was not possible. She had to speaking about a woman living in the city of Rome.

“Such a lovely name it is,” Agreed Galenka. Now the important thing. Can’t be killing local royalty. Please, please, please let her be mine!

Galenka held back the eagerness in her voice as she asked the innocent question. “Are you from around here?”

Aurora smirked slightly. “Oh no, not from around here. I have traveled so very far to be at this place.”

Galenka pulled a chair opposite Aurora. She found she liked looking into that perfect face, those lambent eyes that seemed to glow and spark with the firelight.

“You know, I can smell it from here.”

Galenka paused, confused. “Smell what?”

Aurora nodded to the closed door in back of the house. It was the spare bedroom where she took her victims to indulge in all her carnal pleasures. It was an abattoir.

“The blood. You have killed so many there….Galenka.”

The blood froze in Galenka’s veins. How could she know? And my name! I didn’t tell her my name. I know I didn’t. Is she a friend of Vlad’s? Is this some kind of joke or test?

Her heart skipped a beat.

The Impaler’s jests and tests often had ugly endings.

“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

Aurora laughed. It was a dominant laugh, at once flippant and dismissive.

“Of course you do. You were the paramour of a certain man. He changed you from what you were then to what you are now. And now,” she grinned, and it was a very fearsome grin, “you like to….shall we say, partake in blood rites in so many different ways. You enjoy the sensation as nothing else.”

“You must be mad!” challenged Galenka indignantly. “I allow you the comforts of my home on this bitter cold night and you deem to call me a monster.”

Aurora cocked her head and stared at Galenka, blinking slowly several times. The whole effect of it seemed animalistic, almost feral. It only served to enhance her unearthly beauty even more: A wild thing in a sublimely perfect woman’s body.

“Oh Galenka, why the histrionics and deceit? You think of yourself as exactly that, right? A monster?”

Galenka stared daggers at the woman.

“Come now; let’s have no secrets between us girls. We are quite alone here.” Aurora cajoled. “You think of yourself as a monster, do you not?”

Galenka was proud of what she was, what her master had turned her into. She was not ashamed of it, only the necessity of keeping it hidden.

Finally she spoke, unmistakable pride in her voice. “I love what I am and would never wish to be different than that.”

Aurora laughed low and slow. “Oh no Galenka, no monster are you at all even though you think it. You cannot reach that high station. You are just a sad dilettante hiding behind a prince. You would not last a month without him. Your prince is a monster. Your old master was a monster.” Aurora’s full lips pulled back revealing perfect, completely white teeth. “But I am the most deadly monster and you my young Galenka are just another victim of the real monsters who walk this earth.”

She knows! She knows everything! She knows about my love, Radescu!

“How do you know these things?”

“Because I can sense him. And I can sense his thralls. I can find them as though lanterns lit in the dark guiding the way. You glow to me. I have been tracking your master for a good while now.”

Galenka gasped. Aurora was like her master! Radescu had told her he had never met another of his kind and that he was forever in search of them. Now he was gone and here she was! What she would give to somehow let him know but it was impossible.

Galenka did not like the way this creature was looking at her. It reminded her of the time she had seen a wolf stalking a baby deer. The end had been particularly gruesome.

“Do not think to harm me. I am Vlad’s favorite. I am under his protection in all things.”

Aurora merely smiled at the threat. “There is no protection from me. Not for anyone. I could allow you to leave these rooms and go out into the blizzard and call your precious vovoid. His time is short Galenka. Too many enemies you see. But if you called to him and he arrived with his retinue of body guards this very night would be his last as Prince of Wallachia.”

Aurora studied Galenka for moment. She waved her hand to the door. “If you don’t believe me, go ahead. I won’t stop you. I promise. And I never break my word.” The vulpine grin she added was enough to send Galenka shaking. She didn’t move a muscle.

“What do you want from me?”

“Just a few answers. I want to know more about the man I seek, your master.”

“If I answer them will you let me live.”

Aurora gave an inscrutable smile. “I will not harm you..unless you ask it of me.”

“I would never ask to be harmed.”

“Then you are quite safe. Now that we have a bargain, let us begin. I seek out others of my kind.”

“Have you found any?”

Aurora held up three fingers.

“One was young and foolish. He could have brought notice and trouble to my kind from the humans. I ended him. The other was ancient and wise, older even than I. He taught me much. But he was happy where he was and I am.,..more of a wandering soul. I prefer to move about…kind of vagabond. The world is so full of sights and cultures and I…..like to sample it all. So after two hundred years I left him. The other was close to my age. But she preferred a solitary existence and I honored that.”“Is that what you do? Search for others….”

Aurora shook her head. “No I don’t seek them. But when I see signs of one I must find them. It is something I enjoy immensely. The thrill of the hunt, the end of the hunt, what I find there. It is stimulating.”

Julianus sat still as the grave for a long moment. “Finding them brings closure for me Galeneka. I so love closure. And I mean to have it again.”

Aurora leaned closer. “Now tell me, how old is your master?”

“I know he has been alive for over nine hundred years.”

“Very young.”

This response shocked Galenka and sparked a question in her mind she could not help but ask. “How…how old are you?”

“I have lived fifteen thousand years,” the vampiress answered flatly.

Galenka swallowed. She could not even put her mind around such a number.

“The name your master used in these parts?”

“Radescu Stoica.” Galenka would never betray her master but she knew that Radescu would want Aurora to find him, to bring an end to his long search.

“Where is he now?” she asked with keen interest, leaning forward just a bit.

“I don’t know. He left me last year. He just said he was going west. He said the future was in the west.”

Aurora rubbed her chin, deep in thought. “Your master is correct. He is smart for one so callow. I would love to meet him. There is much I could teach him about our kind if I find him worthy to survive. And I believe I would. He hides his existence very well.”

“Wha…what… would you teach my master?”

“Many things that he does not now about us. I have powers he cannot even fathom. Things our kind only learn though time and age, powers I have that he will not for many thousands of years. I can teach him so much. All the things he seeks. I can even teach him how to shorten his sleep.”

Galenka gasped. “He railed against his sleep. It was the bane of his existence! He would want to learn all those things and more. Radescu wants to learn more than any man I have ever met. He is curious about all things and so very smart. His heart would burst from happiness if you met. You must find him Aurora!”

Aurora nodded. She wanted to meet Radescu very much as well. “All good traits,” she murmured, staring into the fire. And she would not stop until she found him. He was leading her on a merry chase, a very clever, elusive man. This was a grand adventure and she was all in on, loving every moment of it. She had never been denied any want in thousands of years, she had grown so strong and she would not be denied this either.

I will traverse the whole of the world and eons of time to find Radescu. Nothing on earth now or ever can stop me.

“It is your master’s sleep that has often thwarted my attempts in finding him. For three hundred years he leaves no imprint to follow, no thralls to light the way to him. I must pause just as he does when he takes to his rest.”

Aurora knew Galenka had told her the truth. She had entered her mind the moment she stepped foot in her house. It was as easy and quick for her as taking a small unconscious breath. If Galenka had lied she would have known.

Julianus sat, pondering things for while. Then her face flickered slightly with decision.

Finally she looked up at Galenka. “I think our time together is at an end.”

There was a subtle finality to her tone that Galenka did not catch for she was thinking of something else.

She was thinking about how good her master made her feel when he put her under his spell; the sensations that coursed through her mind and veins and muscles and between her legs when he did it, when they had sex and most especially when he fed from her mind and blood and gave her more of his beautiful darkness.

And she knew Aurora could do the same. She missed it so desperately, every waking second of her life. She even dreamt of it when she slept, every single night. She could not escape the inexorable, relentless pull of that sweet addiction. Her thighs were twitching now, an odor of her musk filling the air.

It was odd but in the last few minutes these thoughts had started to overwhelm her, piling up ceaselessly, clogging her mind like a dam now ready to burst.

Aurora was watching her intently, the barest hint of an ancient knowing smile playing her succulent lips.

“Do you want something of me, pretty, sweet Galenka, before I depart this house? I am known for my generosity in returning favors. I feel in your debt to a small degree.” she said her tone now so very inviting of dark, luscious acts between the two young, beautiful girls all alone in a house wrapped up in the violent, raging storm.

To Galenka Aurora’s voice now sounded like a clarion call to everything she had craved since Radescu had left. The year he had been gone seemed like an eternity for her. Suddenly she had the most powerful emotional feelings. They were suffusing her. She realized what it was. She was in love with Aurora! She didn’t know how it happened but all she knew was she would do anything for this otherworldly beautiful woman who had entered her house.

Her heart was pounding like a blacksmiths anvil when she stammered out the words. “Can…y…y..you…do to me what Radescu did? Ma…ma..make me fff..feel that way?” she stammered, her heart now pounding in her ears and breasts.

Aurora giggled. It was like the tinkling of seductive, shiny, silver bells. “Oh I can make you feel so much better than Radescu ever could. You have no idea.”

Galenka felt a small orgasm shake her cunt at the words. Suddenly sweat was dripping off her face, down her neck onto her full chest. She loved Aurora like nothing else. It made every emotion she had ever felt seem dead and useless.

Aurora pointed at the ground, at her booted feet with an imperious gesture.

When she spoke her voice was a command and her eyes danced with merriment. “Crawl to me, Galenka, show me how much you want me, how much you need me. Show me just how desperately you live to be between my legs and in my power. You are such a pretty little serving wench. Do what you were born to do and serve me now.”

Galenka mewled a high pitch whine of desire and dropped from her chair in an instant. Yes she was a pretty little serving wench. She was born to do just this! She lived to serve!

As she crawled across the space to Aurora she could feel how aroused her whole body was becoming. She was meant to do this, crawl like some servile animal to this amazing woman who commanded her. She had to crawl to her and put her face between the pillars of Aurora’s legs and on her temple of womanhood.

When she made to the vampires lap Aurora put her hand under Galenka’s chin and lifted her head up to meet her eyes. Galenka felt like she was drowning in them. She was panting hot breaths like an overheated dog.

Aurora pushed into Galenka’s mind hard. It hit her with the force of a mace to the skull.

In just a fraction of an instant all that came before was gone. Radescu, Vlad, her victims, her desires, her wants and need erased and replaced. She felt like some kind of extension of Aurora, a piece of her, like an arm or a leg, her mind and body just there to function at her goddesses command.

Julianus was right. It was so much stronger, faster and more powerful a feeling than Radescu had every done to her. She wondered what it would feel like to have sex with the vampiress, to feed all of her mind and blood to her. The idea of it was making her head spin. Now the only thing in her world, her entire life was the goddess who was stroking her hair as she buried her head between her legs, giving her soft sweet kisses.

Aurora roughly pulled Galenka’s head up by her hair. The pain felt so very good, so perfectly right to Galenka. She wanted Aurora to hurt her more….to hurt her in other places. She needed hurt bad.

She ran a delicate white finger down Galenka’s flushed, red cheek, the contrast so very clear.

“Will you do anything to receive my special communion my pretty pet? I can tell you honestly, there is none like it.”

“Yes, my goddess, anything at all. Please give it to me,” Galenka husked her mouth dry with overwhelming desire. She felt like she was burning up with fever; a beautiful, lusty fever that was devouring her from the insides. Her whole body was shaking and quivering uncontrollably.

“You will obey any command and wish I have?”

“Any command, all your wishes are my wishes. I love you so much. I want only to serve you.”

“We made a bargain, you and I. I promised I would not harm you unless you wished it. Do you remember sweet, young Galenka? As I said, I never break my word once given.”

“Yes! Yes I do. I would never forget your words. Only your words matter to me.”

A half smile, half sneer danced on Aurora’s lips. “I wish to feed on your pretty body Galenka, and take your entire mind. I want you to give all of yourself to me, your blood, your body, your mind until you are nothing but a dead husk.”

“Yes….yes…” muttered Galenka, her eyes fluttering wildly at the thought of her goddess feeding off her till she was nothing but a dead husk.

“In accordance with our bargain struck just this eve do you give me permission to do that to you? Do you desire me to do it to you? You must make the decision.”

“Yes!” whined Galenka. “Yes please. I want only that you feed from me, take my body and mind, take all of me. I….n…nee…need it so badly. I h…have to…have…it.”

“Good girl. I shall grant you your wish.” She patted her lap. “Come up here closer and you will feel bliss as you never imagined while I end your short life.”

Galenka bounded up onto Aurora’s lap. Her goddess gazed into her eyes for a moment, pushing even further into her mind.

Aurora held out her hand. “Let me see that knife you have hidden in feeble treachery, the one you planned to use on me.”

Galenka immediately pulled it out and handed it to her. She was glad to obey the command. She was delighted and even more powerfully aroused to know Aurora was aware of her treacherous, murderous plans.

The vampiress looked the blade over. She held out her other hand and ran the knife along her finger, drawing blood. “Good steel and sharp. It bits quick and deep.”

She reached out with her finger and painted Galenka’s right cheek then her left with a line of her blood. Galenaka’s pussy spasmed and she let out a soft moan.

Aurora smiled at here. “You look nice like that. I like it. Wild and savage.” Galenka moaned again, much harder.

She held out her bleeding finger. Galenka stared at it and licked her lips.

Aurora simply nodded and Galenka began to suckle greedily like a babe at its mother’s tit, her eyes shut tight as she did so.

After a while Aurora pulled her hand away. For a few seconds Galenka, her eyes still closed made sucking motions with her mouth, so lost in ecstasy that she did not know Aurora’s hand was gone.

Finally she opened her eyes and blinked. She stared at her goddess with glassy eyes, smiling emptily.

“Now Galenka, do you know what I desire?” asked Julianus with curiosity.

Galenka’s mind raced back to the words Aurora had spoken, desperate not to disappoint her.

Then her face lit up. “Closure! You want closure!” she said with hope.

Julianus reached out her pale, delicate hand and ran it through Galenka’s hair like she was a pet. “Very good. You make me so proud of you my pretty, pretty corpse.”

With her master’s touch and those words ringing in her ear Galenka found herself quivering uncontrollably with a profound, all encompassing joy. Her arousal shot up even higher knowing that Aurora was seeing her like this, so docile, so willing, so obedient and ready to be used.

“After I am done taking everything from you I will use your knife to finish you off. Do you like that idea, pet?”

Galenka nodded like some doll with strings attached, her smile growing wider. “I want that more than anything,” she replied in a dreamy, far off voice.

“Good, the let’s get started. Let’s have closure then. I have traveling to do tonight.”

She leaned in and Galenka’s quivering lips met hers.

Then she pulled back and gave the most beautiful smile Galenka had ever seen. And behind it was two, thin, glorious, shining fangs. They were so thin, perfectly symmetrical, so blindingly white and pretty. They shined with moisture and looked ever so much like perfect master crafted jewels. Galenka so wanted them to pierce her skin.

And then Aurora went to work. And it was true. Galenka experienced everything Aurora had promised and more. She died knowing her goddess never lied.

For two days Galenka did not report to the castle for her duties or to Vlad’s bedchamber in the eve. On the third day he and three men went to her abode.

Inside they found Galenka. She was dead, grey and cold, not resembling the stunning beauty she had been in life. She was naked, her thighs, groin and breasts mutilated with knife slashes and cuts. Her head was decapitated. These were the areas Aurora had fed from and when she was done she always disguised her bit marks with the knife. She had not lived so long being careless.

Vlad stared down at his paramour, his sharp mind analyzing the scene.

He felt nothing for Galenka, her death immaterial to him. She was just a serving girl. Yes he had taken pleasure from her lovely body but there were so many serving girls in his castle. He could have countless wenches on any given day or night.

Her death seemed meaningless for him….unless it was some hidden enemy who had tortured her for information, a chance to strike at him. But gazing at her, especially the look on her face he did not think this was the case. He was sure there was something else at play here. Something very interesting.

“Strange,” said one of his royal guards. “All those wounds yet no blood I can see at all. It makes no sense. How could it be?”

Vlad thought back to Galenka’s sexual obsession with blood. And he also ruminated on the fact that Galenka told him his old friend Radescu had indoctrinated her into this practice when they had been lovers. A coincidence?

“Radescu…” he murmured under his breath.

The guard turned to Vlad. “Do you think this could be a sign of witchcraft? I mean the wounds and lack of blood and…god the look on her face! She is smiling like the Lamb of God himself held her tight as she died.”

And it was true. Even three days into death Galenka’s mouth was parted in a rapturous smile. It was undeniable. She had loved her final, horrible moments.

Vlad looked at the man, his eyes ablaze. He did not countenance fools. The guard coughed and stopped speaking immediately then looked away.

Vlad bent down and examined Galenka’s body carefully.

Decapitated. He remembered the last man Radescu killed, the fool guard Raja who had tried to show him up. Vlad had handed the man to his friend as a gift on the day he had departed.

Radescu had decapitated him. Vlad looked at Galenka’s dead face.

“Hmmmmmm….” A second coincidence?

Vlad walked to the door. The snow was piled up high. Almost impossible to traverse for long except by horse or sled….yet…there they were, lone boot tracks leaving Galenka’s quarters. He knew they were a woman’s boots; too small for a man.

Vlad knew Galenka was dangerous....for a woman. Yet another female had taken her apart without any signs of a struggle at all. How had she done this? And why? He found all this most intriguing.

The boot tracks were heading west. The same direction Radescu had a year ago.

A third coincidence?

And he wondered about the connection between blood, decapitation, Radescu and Galenka and those tracks heading west and he knew it was not a coincidence. He didn’t believe in them. He knew better. This was linked together in some great mystery. But try as he might, he could not fathom its form, reason or process.

One of his guards came over and he too looked at the tracks.

“Do you want us to follow them? Only three days old. In this snow it will be slow going. We can catch the killer.”

Vlad considered this. But again his gut had the answer. He knew they would never find her.

He shook his head in answer. He felt sad that he would never decipher this mystery of blood, his old friend, the wench and allure of the west. But he knew life offered one mystery after another and you were lucky to understand just a few before the grave swiftly claimed you.

Where are you flying bloodthirsty little bird? Chasing after my Radescu? Are you a friend of his or a foe? You best be a friend or you may not like what you find if you catch him.

Vlad thought about his friend, fellow soldier and trusted advisor. Radescu had been brave, clever, loyal and honest. He had told Vlad that he would return to Wallachia and he believed it. But he also knew he would never lay eyes on him again. Ultimately Radescu was no advisor or soldier in another’s service. Vlad knew him too well for that. Tepes understood his friend was someone very unusual and special, royalty in his own right, a born ruler who would write his own story.

And he realized once again how much he missed everything about Radescu. How much he would miss him in the many conflicts yet to be fought.

Vlad wondered about what the future held for Radescu. And with those thoughts came a feeling Tepes rarely experienced, an unmistakable twinge of envy.

And he wondered what thrilling adventures Radescu would exalt in, what glorious battles his warrior friend would be fighting and how deep an imprimatur he would carve in the pages of human history for himself, in the future, out in the vast west.