(no subject)
TITLE: A Different Tune
RATING: R (despite my best efforts to keep it G-ish)
FANDOMS: Taniec Wampirow (aka Polish version of Tanz der Vampire)
SUMMARY: A mild AU of Tanz der Vampire, taken from the moment where Sarah tries to steal Alfred's bath.
PAIRINGS: Von Krolock/Alfred, Von Krolock/Sarah, Herbert/Alfred, ie. the standard :)
WORDS: 3075
NOTES: I think I've had this in mind since July-ish, possibly August. And then, went to see Taniec Wampirow again in Warsaw. The way VK was played was perfect for this fic not to mention how thoroughly wicked Herbert was, so behold. Tis written :)
And yes, all the kids in this story look like the Von Krolock, Alfred, Sarah (though Sarah has a side of the understudy's characterisation, just to confuse things) and Herbert in the Polish production. And I can say kids because I'm older than all four of the main ones in this story :P
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Sarah scowled at the door.
The old man, the Professor, had given her a rather puzzled look when she had tried to sneak through his room to reach the bathroom, and informed her that she must have taken the wrong door.
With a show of shocked innocence over such a foolish mistake, she had backed out of the room and pulled the door closed behind her with a bit more force than was really necessary.
Why couldn’t the stupid old man be asleep? If it was only the boy, she could smile and tug the front of her nightshirt a little lower, and watch his eyes go round again, then perhaps, get the bath before it got too cold.
She hadn’t needed to see the bathroom to know that’s what the boy was doing. She had been brushing her hair when she heard the familiar slap of water against the tub and had hoped against hopes that she would be able to win entrance to the bathroom from the boy.
The sponge was squeezed mercilessly and she glared at the door, sticking out her lower lip in annoyance as if it might get her through the room somehow. She could hear the old man still moving around and stamped a foot.
It was her bath! Why should someone else get to use it? Just because papa said they were guests didn’t mean it was right that they got to use her bathroom or fair that they made her smell like garlic all the time.
Storming back to her bedroom, she slammed the door and hurled the sponge at the blocked door that led to the bathroom.
Stupid guests! Why did they have to come now? Why couldn’t they come in summer when it was warm enough to have the windows open to let the smell of garlic out so she didn’t have to smell of it all the time?
Sitting down heavily on the bed, she folded her arms and glared at the door again, more fiercely, hoping the boy would sense her annoyance. She heard the splash of a final bucket, then the sound of clothing hitting the floor.
Intrigue vied with annoyance.
After all, the boy...
Well, he wasn’t as ugly as some of the men in the village.
Curiosity won.
Getting up, she tip-toed towards the door and peeked carefully through the crack between the doorframe and the door. It was almost half as wide as her little finger, and she could see the boy on the far side of the room, beyond the bathtub.
Biting her lip, Sarah squinted, but the crack didn’t leave much space for her to see any more of the room, so it would just have to do. She could see one half of the tub, and when the boy started to climb into it, she clapped a hand over her mouth and felt her cheeks going red.
Fortunately he turned around a little, but that gave her a completely different view and she tilted her head a bit, admiring the backside the boy was putting on display. It wasn’t the first time she had seen a boy’s rear end. The boys from the village would dare each other to wave their backsides at her mother, then try and outrun her. It always surprised them just how fast Mama Chagal could run when she wanted to catch a cheeky boy and soundly thrash him.
None of them looked quite like that, though.
For a moment, she almost considered forgiving him for stealing her bath.
Of course, then he sat down and it was hidden by the edge of the tub. He started splashing, and she was almost sure he was doing it noisily on purpose.
Since there was nothing to see that she had not seen before, and since he had her bath while she did not, she turned away from the door, glaring at the opposite wall with its strings of garlic. And he kept splashing.
Stamping a foot, she wanted to kick at the door and shout at him to stop splashing so much. It wasn’t fair and he was making it even worse.
Then she blinked at a strange sound.
It sounded like a yelp, but it was followed by a voice. A deep man’s voice that definitely didn’t belong to the boy or the old man in the other room. Whirling around, she pressed her eye to the crack between door and frame.
Whoever it was, it looked like it had startled the boy. Maybe someone climbing up on the timbers of the roof. The village fool had done that once, and Mama Chagal had chased him through the inn when he fell through the ceiling of her bedroom while she was dressing.
Pressing back against the back of the tub, the boy was staring upwards at someone. Sarah leaned this way and that, trying to see what he was seeing. He looked both shocked and mortified, and she supposed if a strange man from the village had climbed through the roof when she was in the bath, she might have been the same.
And the voice spoke again, then the boy squealed and slammed back against the back of the bath, staring at something that certainly wasn’t in the rafters anymore, his hands plunging down into the tub to shield himself.
Sarah pressed closer to the door, biting on her lower lip, and almost fell over backwards when something swept in front of the door. Holding her breath, she clutched at the frame, watching as a man moved towards the back of the bath, where the boy was cowering.
And what a man it was!
No villager falling from the attic, this one.
Tall and handsome, and with hair like a gleaming black sheet around his shoulders, he circled the bath. She saw a pair of flashing black eyes, and a mouth that was smiling and speaking softly, deeply, and though she couldn’t make out the words, she shivered at the sound.
From under his blue-lined black cloak, two long, pale hands emerged, smoothing the air before him in a soothing gesture, though she noticed that the boy shied back from them before she returned her eyes to the man’s face.
He was speaking to the boy, so softly, yet it was like the very sound of his voice was rippling under her skin. She could see his eyes were on the boy’s face, one hand lingering, extended towards the boy, fingers gently curling, enticingly, beckoning.
A glance told her the boy was staring too, and the man turned away, looking towards the door of the other room, where the boy’s mentor was. His other hand swept across the air before the door, his fingers tensing as if the sight displeased him, his upper lip curling in distaste.
He swung back to the boy in the bath. Around him, his cloak billowed, his hands suddenly gripping the edge of the tub, his face close to the boy’s, dark eyes glittering. Sarah realised she was panting faintly.
His face turned up towards the man’s, the boy’s lips were parted, and his eyes were wide. The man leaned so close that they were almost skin-to-skin, whispering some secret enticement that made the boy draw a quivering breath.
A hand swirled from the side of the tub, shaping the boy’s head and coming to rest beneath his chin. A single long-nailed finger drew the boy to his feet in the tub, water streaming down his limp arms and his sides.
The man rose to tower over the naked boy, his other arm sweeping around the boy’s waist and pulling him fast against the man’s chest.
The hand beneath his chin slid to cradle his jaw and the man lowered his head, his dark eyes boring into the boy’s, then he brushed his lips against the boy’s. A faint whimper turned into a moan as the boy’s head fell back and his eyes closed.
Sarah stared as the man slowly lifted his hand from the boy’s jaw and traced the outline of the boy’s face with his fingertips. Her hands were bunched in the skirts of her nightdress and she was biting on her lower lip, her heart racing.
Then dark eyes flicked up, staring straight at her.
With a yelp, she threw herself back from the door, stumbling on her nightdress and landing heavily on her unmade bed. Her head struck the wall behind her, dislodging several bulbs of garlic, which made her squeal in shock.
From the other room, beyond the boarded door, she heard the splash of water. Maybe he was laying the boy back down, now. Then silence for a moment, then the aching creak of wood.
Scrambling back on the bed, pressing against the wall, she groped wildly for the crucifix that hung over the headboard, panting and shivering.
Yet when the hinges squeaked and the door of the bathroom swung inwards, the piece of wood and metal slipped from her shaking fingers, clattering uselessly down behind the bed.
Black eyes gazed at her and she stared back, pressed against the wall, her feet tangled in her nightdress and the blankets, her hands clinging to the blankets on either side of her body.
The lips curved up. It wasn’t a smile and it was barely an expression, but it reached those glittering eyes and made her heart leap. The panting breaths fell silent, caught in her throat and, transfixed, she watched his hand unfold from beneath the cloak, extending towards her, each finger slowly uncurling.
And in his other arm, the boy was cradled as if nothing more than a child.
With a look at the boy’s face that was strangely and gently affectionate, he returned his gaze to her, and slowly curled his fingers in wordless invitation, inclining his head and letting his hair slip over his shoulders.
And when his eyes captured hers again, she didn’t even think about her response.
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Chasing after the hunchback, Herbert hopped along on one foot to pull off his shoe and hurl it at the silly repulsive thing. His father’s servant bellowed in outrage and Herbert hissed, grabbing at the wall to stabilise himself as he tugged his other shoe off and hurled it after the hunchback’s retreating figure. It bounced off the man’s head and clattered down the staircase after him.
Running to the top of the stairs, Herbert leaned over the railing and hissed again. The hunchback gestured back at him from the bottom of the curved staircase. With a scowl, Herbert reached up and grabbed a burning candle from a candleabra close to him and threw it with all his might.
Koukol yowled as the burning wax hit him in the face. Another candle, then another followed. Hissing with each hurled missile, Herbert pouted when he ran out of weapons, snorting and turning on his heel, then stalking back into the hall behind him.
He heard the hunchback yell something after him and spat something equally crude back at him.
Stupid wretched ugly thing!
When would it learn that his finest silk stockings and shirts should never ever be used as dishcloths? Father said it was accidental, that Koukol simply didn’t appreciate the finer things, but Herbert could see by the look in its malformed eyes that the stupid creature knew exactly what it was doing.
And father said it was useful. Bah! All it did was remind Herbert that his father’s servant had more freedom than he did at the moment. While living in a castle was no doubt a great adventure for the wretch, being contained by the walls day after day and night after night did grow a little tiresome.
Father was adamant, however. This year, he was to ensure the castle was protected at all times, especially when his father went off to chase his latest interest. One night, Herbert had watched from the laboratory as his father haunted the village and the inn and the girl.
Yes, he had giggled a bit over the fact that his father was peeping into the silly girl’s bathroom while she was bathing. He had mentioned that to father and father had given him that look, and Herbert had feigned innocence, then scurried off to his room, laughing.
Still, it had been a whole year since father had allowed him to go and find his own entertainment. Just because the last time he had gone out meant those idiotic hunters had followed him home and Koukol had spent the next three weeks scraping blood from between the paving stones was no reason to take his little pleasures from him.
And the ugly wretch thought it was funny.
Father said Koukol wasn’t laughing, every time Herbert was told to remain indoors. He also said Koukol wasn’t smirking at him every time it was told to go out and fetch goods for the castle. He also believed that the castle was cleaned from top to bottom.
Sometimes, father could be ridiculously blind when there was a fresh pair of breasts on the horizon.
From the far end of the hall, where the largest staircase opened into the hall, he heard the sound of the grand front doors opening. Skidding on his shoeless feet, he sprinted headlong, determined to reach father before Koukol got there and complained about Herbert’s treatment of him again. One would think the hunchback would get used to it, but it seemed to consider itself privileged, and Herbert saw no reason for it.
Half-falling down the staircase in his haste, he stopped dead at the sight of father and the girl who was clinging to him. His nose wrinkling, Herbert’s brows rose towards the ceiling dubiously.
“I thought she was meant to arrive for the ball,” he observed.
His father smiled at him. “There has been something of a change of plans,” he murmured and unfolded his cloak from the front of his body.
A slight and exceptionally and delightfully naked body tumbled from his grip and to the floor. It rolled onto its back, its pretty face turned up towards the ceiling, and Herbert uttered a squeal of delight.
“For me?” he gasped, clasping his hands before him.
His father’s lips curved upwards. “Since you have behaved so well this year, I think you deserve such a morsel,” he replied, inclining his head towards the boy. “You may need to warm him and rouse him before he can provide you with any entertainment.”
Herbert beamed, showing all his teeth. “I shall have him put to bed at once and see that he is well looked-after,” he said with a virtuous expression on his face that made his father’s lips twitch.
He bent and swept his gift up in his arms. For a moment, the girl looked like she was about to protest, warily watching him, but his father lifted a hand and turned her chin towards him with a delicateness that almost set Herbert giggling again. She would be entirely distracted in a matter of moments, he knew.
Turning, he trotted back up the stairs, his newest toy held snugly in his arms.
__________________
His hands clenched together in front of him, Alfred pressed back against one of the many polished columns that lined the ballroom. His eyes were darting everywhere, and given the circumstances, he felt he could be forgiven for his wariness.
Around him, men and women were dancing to eerie music. Some of them were caked in dirt. Others had the traces of blood under their nails. All of them reeked of decay and rot and the chilly dampness of a grave.
Not surprising, Alfred thought weakly. Vampires usually are a little bit more dead than normal people. The Professor was right, it seemed.
“Oh, there you are, my darling!” a delighted voice exclaimed in his ear a moment before he was whirled away from the pillar and into the arms of the vampire who had been cradling him when he woke.
Alfred yelped, stumbling over his feet. Several of the dancers hissed at him when he collided with them, but the vampire in front of him glared at them and they fell silent. He wondered what was the greater evil; the unknown ones or the one who - as of a dozen hours earlier - had made himself very familiar.
He warily looked up at the pale-haired vampire who was beaming adoringly at him and showing those very long teeth. Then the vampire giggled and spun him, and he tottered again. His momentum whirled them off the dance-floor and brought him hard against a wall, the vampire uttering a delighted sound and pinning him there.
“Hiding again, were you?” the vampire exclaimed breathlessly, his eyes shining and his long, pale hands smoothing Alfred’s new shirt, the white ruffles spreading under his fingers.
“I-I wasn’t hiding…”
The vampire pouted, cupping Alfred’s chin in a cool hand. “One would think you didn’t want to put yourself on display,” he chided, then lowered his head. Alfred shied back from the kiss, wild-eyed, earning a petulant sound from the vampire. “Now, really, darling…”
The next kiss wasn’t so easy to avoid, a hand in his hair and another at his waist, and despite the yelps and protests he tried to shape against the vampire’s mouth, it had all the effect of throwing a snowball at a fire.
Uttering a delighted sound that was completely indecent and made Alfred’s ears go even redder, the vampire threw his head back. “Oh, cheri, you are precious!” He gave Alfred a fond squeeze from a hand that slid downwards and made Alfred jerk against him. The fangs gleamed brightly. “And still, you fight? Silly, silly darling.”
His lips trembling, Alfred’s hands pressed against the vampire’s chest, trying to push him back, which earned him another pout. “I-I shouldn’t be here,” he mumbled, cringing when his hand was caught and pulled to the vampire’s lips, his palm and fingers lavishly kissed.
“Oh, don’t be silly,” the vampire said airily, nibbling on his fingers. “Where else could you go? After all, you’re one of us now.”
With a faint whimper, Alfred squeezed his eyes shut. A tongue curled around one of his fingertips, but he made himself ignore it. Tried to, at least. He had been trying to forget about the… incident. Bad enough that he had been bitten by a vampire, but to be bitten when the vampire was…
“Oh! He blushes!” the vampire - other vampire, Alfred corrected reluctantly - squealed with delight. He was pried from the pillar and pulled against the pale-haired vampire’s body, those hands suddenly clasping his rear, making him squeak again. “Come, darling, you must dance with me!”
Forcing one eye open, Alfred saw a vicious-looking beast glaring at him, claw-like hands clenched by his sides. Blood was streaked from beneath a gouged eye, a tarnished crown pushed low over a pale forehead, and when Alfred stared at him, the vampire bared its fangs, its expression almost as ugly as its face.
“Oh, shoo!” the vampire who was tugging Alfred onto the dance-floor exclaimed. He flapped a hand at the scarred vampire, who scowled even more darkly. “Stop scaring him, you silly thing! Anyone would think you were jealous!”
Jealous?
Alfred could barely wrap his mind around that thought as he was pulled into an intimate waltz, his body gripped tightly against the beaming vampire’s.
The thought that there were monsters here who would actually like to be accosted and chased through the freezing castle wrapped in a blanket, only to be pinned on the very floor they were dancing on and...
He remembered how cold and smooth the floor had been against his scrabbling hands, the way his knees had been bruised, the chill in the air. Colour burned up into his cheeks at the other memories rapidly crowding in. Hands on his hips, lips on his skin, nails scratching, teeth biting, flesh meeting...
Had he screamed? For mercy or for more? He could barely recall in the haze of confusion, pain and embarrassment. If he had, then the vampire had probably liked it, even as Alfred had fallen face-first onto the floor, his own blood sticky against his face.
The vampire holding him crooned a curious sound, lifting a hand to brush a stray strand of Alfred’s hair back from his forehead. “So thoughtful, my darling,” he said, batting his eyelashes. “What is going on inside that pretty little head?”
If he had been able to speak, Alfred wished he could have screamed.
His mother would have been appalled.
He felt his cheeks redden even more. The vampire’s lips curled up knowingly, showing those sharp fangs again.
If he intended to say anything, though, the vampire’s words were cut off by the music falling silent. Alfred followed the direction of the grey-green eyes warily, the expression on the pale-haired vampire’s face making him even more nervous than he already was.
The sight that greeted him almost made his legs buckle. Atop a staircase, clad in black and red, the man who had invaded his bathroom was standing, regal and terrifying. Black eyes snared Alfred’s and he stumbled, only for the vampire to wrap his arms more securely about Alfred’s body and hold him upright.
“So you remember my father, hmm?” The words were a breath in his ear, making a shiver run the length of his spine. “Small wonder, my darling. Isn’t he ravishing?”
Startled, Alfred stared at the vampire holding him. His father? Ravishing? Surely even these monsters were not that perverse. The vampire caught his look and burst out laughing, so loudly that every eye in the room turned towards them, some so hostile that Alfred found himself shrinking closer to the vampire.
“Something amuses you, Herbert?”
The voice. The voice of the man from the bathroom. It was as dark and silken and sinful as Alfred remembered. His ears burned and he bit on his lip, yelping when his new fangs cut into the flesh and he felt the blood welling up.
“My lovely little darling is having some awfully silly ideas, father,” the vampire, Herbert, replied. He sounded like he was still laughing, but Alfred didn’t dare to raise his head to see, not with those dark eyes so close.
He saw the hand and instant before a needle-sharp nail touched beneath his chin and raised his face to that of Herbert’s father, the dark-haired, black-clad master of this place. Dark as midnight, the eyes fixed on his face and he felt himself trembling.
If the vampire had reached into his body and pulled out his heart, he could not have cut him as deeply as those eyes did, tearing through every mental barrier he might have had, pinning him back against Herbert and making him quake with emotions he didn’t understand.
Then the full, pale lips curved slowly.
“Welcome, brav Alfred, to our eternal company,” the dark-haired vampire murmured, his voice wrapping around Alfred like a cord, drawing him forward until he was barely an arm’s width from the vampire. That proud head bowed towards him and he felt the brush of those lips against his again. A nail traced along his jaw and he tried futilely to stifle a whine. “Do not fear, little one.”
“I-I’m n-not...”
The indulgent smile that played briefly across the dark vampire’s face made his insides twist in strange manners and he clenched his hands to stop them trembling. “Herbert will take the most tender of care of you.”
“Oh, I truly will!” Herbert’s arms were suddenly around him once more and Alfred jolted with shock. Somehow, he had forgotten the pale haired vampire was standing behind him. “And thank you, father, for your most generous gift.”
“Gift?!” Alfred squeaked as he was firmly pulled back against Herbert’s taller, slimmer body and Herbert’s father silently glided away, taking his haunting eyes and his enigmatic smile with him.
A pale finger pointed over his shoulder towards the staircase. A familiar feminine figure in a blood-red dress was slowly descending towards the dark vampire. “Father has his little entertainments,” Herbert purred close to his ear. “And he provides me with mine.”
Even across the wide floor, Alfred could see by the colour in the girl’s skin that she was still alive, mortal. Part of him wanted to scream out to warn her, but another part, a hungry, wanting part, growled, and he felt his lips draw back from his teeth.
“Yes...” Herbert moaned against his ear. Alfred felt the hands sliding over his hips, and felt the vampire pressing against him. There could be no mistaking his intentions. Alfred knew that he should protest, argue, shy away, but he found himself panting as he watched the dark vampire pulling the girl close.
She struggled now, shied where Alfred no longer could, tried to ward the dark vampire off with slender wrists that were pushed aside without mercy.
Alfred’s breath was hissing between his fangs. He felt hands kneading at his thighs and was dazedly startled to realise they were his own. Herbert’s hand slipped between cloth and flesh, and their hips were shifting together as the girl’s head was pulled to one side. Her neck was bared. Long, pale, inviting.
Alfred lunged forward, hungrier than he could ever remember being, a bestial sound escaping him as the dark vampire brought his lips down to that throat. And he threw his head back with a keening cry as fangs ripped into flesh and the girl screamed.
Hands were on him, pulling him holding him, and again, he was brought to his knees on the floor. And as the girl’s blood spattered the polished floor before him and the vampire moved on him, over him, in him, he arched with want and need.
The sound of vampires’ laughter echoed around him, a symphony of damnation.
RATING: R (despite my best efforts to keep it G-ish)
FANDOMS: Taniec Wampirow (aka Polish version of Tanz der Vampire)
SUMMARY: A mild AU of Tanz der Vampire, taken from the moment where Sarah tries to steal Alfred's bath.
PAIRINGS: Von Krolock/Alfred, Von Krolock/Sarah, Herbert/Alfred, ie. the standard :)
WORDS: 3075
NOTES: I think I've had this in mind since July-ish, possibly August. And then, went to see Taniec Wampirow again in Warsaw. The way VK was played was perfect for this fic not to mention how thoroughly wicked Herbert was, so behold. Tis written :)
And yes, all the kids in this story look like the Von Krolock, Alfred, Sarah (though Sarah has a side of the understudy's characterisation, just to confuse things) and Herbert in the Polish production. And I can say kids because I'm older than all four of the main ones in this story :P
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Sarah scowled at the door.
The old man, the Professor, had given her a rather puzzled look when she had tried to sneak through his room to reach the bathroom, and informed her that she must have taken the wrong door.
With a show of shocked innocence over such a foolish mistake, she had backed out of the room and pulled the door closed behind her with a bit more force than was really necessary.
Why couldn’t the stupid old man be asleep? If it was only the boy, she could smile and tug the front of her nightshirt a little lower, and watch his eyes go round again, then perhaps, get the bath before it got too cold.
She hadn’t needed to see the bathroom to know that’s what the boy was doing. She had been brushing her hair when she heard the familiar slap of water against the tub and had hoped against hopes that she would be able to win entrance to the bathroom from the boy.
The sponge was squeezed mercilessly and she glared at the door, sticking out her lower lip in annoyance as if it might get her through the room somehow. She could hear the old man still moving around and stamped a foot.
It was her bath! Why should someone else get to use it? Just because papa said they were guests didn’t mean it was right that they got to use her bathroom or fair that they made her smell like garlic all the time.
Storming back to her bedroom, she slammed the door and hurled the sponge at the blocked door that led to the bathroom.
Stupid guests! Why did they have to come now? Why couldn’t they come in summer when it was warm enough to have the windows open to let the smell of garlic out so she didn’t have to smell of it all the time?
Sitting down heavily on the bed, she folded her arms and glared at the door again, more fiercely, hoping the boy would sense her annoyance. She heard the splash of a final bucket, then the sound of clothing hitting the floor.
Intrigue vied with annoyance.
After all, the boy...
Well, he wasn’t as ugly as some of the men in the village.
Curiosity won.
Getting up, she tip-toed towards the door and peeked carefully through the crack between the doorframe and the door. It was almost half as wide as her little finger, and she could see the boy on the far side of the room, beyond the bathtub.
Biting her lip, Sarah squinted, but the crack didn’t leave much space for her to see any more of the room, so it would just have to do. She could see one half of the tub, and when the boy started to climb into it, she clapped a hand over her mouth and felt her cheeks going red.
Fortunately he turned around a little, but that gave her a completely different view and she tilted her head a bit, admiring the backside the boy was putting on display. It wasn’t the first time she had seen a boy’s rear end. The boys from the village would dare each other to wave their backsides at her mother, then try and outrun her. It always surprised them just how fast Mama Chagal could run when she wanted to catch a cheeky boy and soundly thrash him.
None of them looked quite like that, though.
For a moment, she almost considered forgiving him for stealing her bath.
Of course, then he sat down and it was hidden by the edge of the tub. He started splashing, and she was almost sure he was doing it noisily on purpose.
Since there was nothing to see that she had not seen before, and since he had her bath while she did not, she turned away from the door, glaring at the opposite wall with its strings of garlic. And he kept splashing.
Stamping a foot, she wanted to kick at the door and shout at him to stop splashing so much. It wasn’t fair and he was making it even worse.
Then she blinked at a strange sound.
It sounded like a yelp, but it was followed by a voice. A deep man’s voice that definitely didn’t belong to the boy or the old man in the other room. Whirling around, she pressed her eye to the crack between door and frame.
Whoever it was, it looked like it had startled the boy. Maybe someone climbing up on the timbers of the roof. The village fool had done that once, and Mama Chagal had chased him through the inn when he fell through the ceiling of her bedroom while she was dressing.
Pressing back against the back of the tub, the boy was staring upwards at someone. Sarah leaned this way and that, trying to see what he was seeing. He looked both shocked and mortified, and she supposed if a strange man from the village had climbed through the roof when she was in the bath, she might have been the same.
And the voice spoke again, then the boy squealed and slammed back against the back of the bath, staring at something that certainly wasn’t in the rafters anymore, his hands plunging down into the tub to shield himself.
Sarah pressed closer to the door, biting on her lower lip, and almost fell over backwards when something swept in front of the door. Holding her breath, she clutched at the frame, watching as a man moved towards the back of the bath, where the boy was cowering.
And what a man it was!
No villager falling from the attic, this one.
Tall and handsome, and with hair like a gleaming black sheet around his shoulders, he circled the bath. She saw a pair of flashing black eyes, and a mouth that was smiling and speaking softly, deeply, and though she couldn’t make out the words, she shivered at the sound.
From under his blue-lined black cloak, two long, pale hands emerged, smoothing the air before him in a soothing gesture, though she noticed that the boy shied back from them before she returned her eyes to the man’s face.
He was speaking to the boy, so softly, yet it was like the very sound of his voice was rippling under her skin. She could see his eyes were on the boy’s face, one hand lingering, extended towards the boy, fingers gently curling, enticingly, beckoning.
A glance told her the boy was staring too, and the man turned away, looking towards the door of the other room, where the boy’s mentor was. His other hand swept across the air before the door, his fingers tensing as if the sight displeased him, his upper lip curling in distaste.
He swung back to the boy in the bath. Around him, his cloak billowed, his hands suddenly gripping the edge of the tub, his face close to the boy’s, dark eyes glittering. Sarah realised she was panting faintly.
His face turned up towards the man’s, the boy’s lips were parted, and his eyes were wide. The man leaned so close that they were almost skin-to-skin, whispering some secret enticement that made the boy draw a quivering breath.
A hand swirled from the side of the tub, shaping the boy’s head and coming to rest beneath his chin. A single long-nailed finger drew the boy to his feet in the tub, water streaming down his limp arms and his sides.
The man rose to tower over the naked boy, his other arm sweeping around the boy’s waist and pulling him fast against the man’s chest.
The hand beneath his chin slid to cradle his jaw and the man lowered his head, his dark eyes boring into the boy’s, then he brushed his lips against the boy’s. A faint whimper turned into a moan as the boy’s head fell back and his eyes closed.
Sarah stared as the man slowly lifted his hand from the boy’s jaw and traced the outline of the boy’s face with his fingertips. Her hands were bunched in the skirts of her nightdress and she was biting on her lower lip, her heart racing.
Then dark eyes flicked up, staring straight at her.
With a yelp, she threw herself back from the door, stumbling on her nightdress and landing heavily on her unmade bed. Her head struck the wall behind her, dislodging several bulbs of garlic, which made her squeal in shock.
From the other room, beyond the boarded door, she heard the splash of water. Maybe he was laying the boy back down, now. Then silence for a moment, then the aching creak of wood.
Scrambling back on the bed, pressing against the wall, she groped wildly for the crucifix that hung over the headboard, panting and shivering.
Yet when the hinges squeaked and the door of the bathroom swung inwards, the piece of wood and metal slipped from her shaking fingers, clattering uselessly down behind the bed.
Black eyes gazed at her and she stared back, pressed against the wall, her feet tangled in her nightdress and the blankets, her hands clinging to the blankets on either side of her body.
The lips curved up. It wasn’t a smile and it was barely an expression, but it reached those glittering eyes and made her heart leap. The panting breaths fell silent, caught in her throat and, transfixed, she watched his hand unfold from beneath the cloak, extending towards her, each finger slowly uncurling.
And in his other arm, the boy was cradled as if nothing more than a child.
With a look at the boy’s face that was strangely and gently affectionate, he returned his gaze to her, and slowly curled his fingers in wordless invitation, inclining his head and letting his hair slip over his shoulders.
And when his eyes captured hers again, she didn’t even think about her response.
_________________
Chasing after the hunchback, Herbert hopped along on one foot to pull off his shoe and hurl it at the silly repulsive thing. His father’s servant bellowed in outrage and Herbert hissed, grabbing at the wall to stabilise himself as he tugged his other shoe off and hurled it after the hunchback’s retreating figure. It bounced off the man’s head and clattered down the staircase after him.
Running to the top of the stairs, Herbert leaned over the railing and hissed again. The hunchback gestured back at him from the bottom of the curved staircase. With a scowl, Herbert reached up and grabbed a burning candle from a candleabra close to him and threw it with all his might.
Koukol yowled as the burning wax hit him in the face. Another candle, then another followed. Hissing with each hurled missile, Herbert pouted when he ran out of weapons, snorting and turning on his heel, then stalking back into the hall behind him.
He heard the hunchback yell something after him and spat something equally crude back at him.
Stupid wretched ugly thing!
When would it learn that his finest silk stockings and shirts should never ever be used as dishcloths? Father said it was accidental, that Koukol simply didn’t appreciate the finer things, but Herbert could see by the look in its malformed eyes that the stupid creature knew exactly what it was doing.
And father said it was useful. Bah! All it did was remind Herbert that his father’s servant had more freedom than he did at the moment. While living in a castle was no doubt a great adventure for the wretch, being contained by the walls day after day and night after night did grow a little tiresome.
Father was adamant, however. This year, he was to ensure the castle was protected at all times, especially when his father went off to chase his latest interest. One night, Herbert had watched from the laboratory as his father haunted the village and the inn and the girl.
Yes, he had giggled a bit over the fact that his father was peeping into the silly girl’s bathroom while she was bathing. He had mentioned that to father and father had given him that look, and Herbert had feigned innocence, then scurried off to his room, laughing.
Still, it had been a whole year since father had allowed him to go and find his own entertainment. Just because the last time he had gone out meant those idiotic hunters had followed him home and Koukol had spent the next three weeks scraping blood from between the paving stones was no reason to take his little pleasures from him.
And the ugly wretch thought it was funny.
Father said Koukol wasn’t laughing, every time Herbert was told to remain indoors. He also said Koukol wasn’t smirking at him every time it was told to go out and fetch goods for the castle. He also believed that the castle was cleaned from top to bottom.
Sometimes, father could be ridiculously blind when there was a fresh pair of breasts on the horizon.
From the far end of the hall, where the largest staircase opened into the hall, he heard the sound of the grand front doors opening. Skidding on his shoeless feet, he sprinted headlong, determined to reach father before Koukol got there and complained about Herbert’s treatment of him again. One would think the hunchback would get used to it, but it seemed to consider itself privileged, and Herbert saw no reason for it.
Half-falling down the staircase in his haste, he stopped dead at the sight of father and the girl who was clinging to him. His nose wrinkling, Herbert’s brows rose towards the ceiling dubiously.
“I thought she was meant to arrive for the ball,” he observed.
His father smiled at him. “There has been something of a change of plans,” he murmured and unfolded his cloak from the front of his body.
A slight and exceptionally and delightfully naked body tumbled from his grip and to the floor. It rolled onto its back, its pretty face turned up towards the ceiling, and Herbert uttered a squeal of delight.
“For me?” he gasped, clasping his hands before him.
His father’s lips curved upwards. “Since you have behaved so well this year, I think you deserve such a morsel,” he replied, inclining his head towards the boy. “You may need to warm him and rouse him before he can provide you with any entertainment.”
Herbert beamed, showing all his teeth. “I shall have him put to bed at once and see that he is well looked-after,” he said with a virtuous expression on his face that made his father’s lips twitch.
He bent and swept his gift up in his arms. For a moment, the girl looked like she was about to protest, warily watching him, but his father lifted a hand and turned her chin towards him with a delicateness that almost set Herbert giggling again. She would be entirely distracted in a matter of moments, he knew.
Turning, he trotted back up the stairs, his newest toy held snugly in his arms.
__________________
His hands clenched together in front of him, Alfred pressed back against one of the many polished columns that lined the ballroom. His eyes were darting everywhere, and given the circumstances, he felt he could be forgiven for his wariness.
Around him, men and women were dancing to eerie music. Some of them were caked in dirt. Others had the traces of blood under their nails. All of them reeked of decay and rot and the chilly dampness of a grave.
Not surprising, Alfred thought weakly. Vampires usually are a little bit more dead than normal people. The Professor was right, it seemed.
“Oh, there you are, my darling!” a delighted voice exclaimed in his ear a moment before he was whirled away from the pillar and into the arms of the vampire who had been cradling him when he woke.
Alfred yelped, stumbling over his feet. Several of the dancers hissed at him when he collided with them, but the vampire in front of him glared at them and they fell silent. He wondered what was the greater evil; the unknown ones or the one who - as of a dozen hours earlier - had made himself very familiar.
He warily looked up at the pale-haired vampire who was beaming adoringly at him and showing those very long teeth. Then the vampire giggled and spun him, and he tottered again. His momentum whirled them off the dance-floor and brought him hard against a wall, the vampire uttering a delighted sound and pinning him there.
“Hiding again, were you?” the vampire exclaimed breathlessly, his eyes shining and his long, pale hands smoothing Alfred’s new shirt, the white ruffles spreading under his fingers.
“I-I wasn’t hiding…”
The vampire pouted, cupping Alfred’s chin in a cool hand. “One would think you didn’t want to put yourself on display,” he chided, then lowered his head. Alfred shied back from the kiss, wild-eyed, earning a petulant sound from the vampire. “Now, really, darling…”
The next kiss wasn’t so easy to avoid, a hand in his hair and another at his waist, and despite the yelps and protests he tried to shape against the vampire’s mouth, it had all the effect of throwing a snowball at a fire.
Uttering a delighted sound that was completely indecent and made Alfred’s ears go even redder, the vampire threw his head back. “Oh, cheri, you are precious!” He gave Alfred a fond squeeze from a hand that slid downwards and made Alfred jerk against him. The fangs gleamed brightly. “And still, you fight? Silly, silly darling.”
His lips trembling, Alfred’s hands pressed against the vampire’s chest, trying to push him back, which earned him another pout. “I-I shouldn’t be here,” he mumbled, cringing when his hand was caught and pulled to the vampire’s lips, his palm and fingers lavishly kissed.
“Oh, don’t be silly,” the vampire said airily, nibbling on his fingers. “Where else could you go? After all, you’re one of us now.”
With a faint whimper, Alfred squeezed his eyes shut. A tongue curled around one of his fingertips, but he made himself ignore it. Tried to, at least. He had been trying to forget about the… incident. Bad enough that he had been bitten by a vampire, but to be bitten when the vampire was…
“Oh! He blushes!” the vampire - other vampire, Alfred corrected reluctantly - squealed with delight. He was pried from the pillar and pulled against the pale-haired vampire’s body, those hands suddenly clasping his rear, making him squeak again. “Come, darling, you must dance with me!”
Forcing one eye open, Alfred saw a vicious-looking beast glaring at him, claw-like hands clenched by his sides. Blood was streaked from beneath a gouged eye, a tarnished crown pushed low over a pale forehead, and when Alfred stared at him, the vampire bared its fangs, its expression almost as ugly as its face.
“Oh, shoo!” the vampire who was tugging Alfred onto the dance-floor exclaimed. He flapped a hand at the scarred vampire, who scowled even more darkly. “Stop scaring him, you silly thing! Anyone would think you were jealous!”
Jealous?
Alfred could barely wrap his mind around that thought as he was pulled into an intimate waltz, his body gripped tightly against the beaming vampire’s.
The thought that there were monsters here who would actually like to be accosted and chased through the freezing castle wrapped in a blanket, only to be pinned on the very floor they were dancing on and...
He remembered how cold and smooth the floor had been against his scrabbling hands, the way his knees had been bruised, the chill in the air. Colour burned up into his cheeks at the other memories rapidly crowding in. Hands on his hips, lips on his skin, nails scratching, teeth biting, flesh meeting...
Had he screamed? For mercy or for more? He could barely recall in the haze of confusion, pain and embarrassment. If he had, then the vampire had probably liked it, even as Alfred had fallen face-first onto the floor, his own blood sticky against his face.
The vampire holding him crooned a curious sound, lifting a hand to brush a stray strand of Alfred’s hair back from his forehead. “So thoughtful, my darling,” he said, batting his eyelashes. “What is going on inside that pretty little head?”
If he had been able to speak, Alfred wished he could have screamed.
His mother would have been appalled.
He felt his cheeks redden even more. The vampire’s lips curled up knowingly, showing those sharp fangs again.
If he intended to say anything, though, the vampire’s words were cut off by the music falling silent. Alfred followed the direction of the grey-green eyes warily, the expression on the pale-haired vampire’s face making him even more nervous than he already was.
The sight that greeted him almost made his legs buckle. Atop a staircase, clad in black and red, the man who had invaded his bathroom was standing, regal and terrifying. Black eyes snared Alfred’s and he stumbled, only for the vampire to wrap his arms more securely about Alfred’s body and hold him upright.
“So you remember my father, hmm?” The words were a breath in his ear, making a shiver run the length of his spine. “Small wonder, my darling. Isn’t he ravishing?”
Startled, Alfred stared at the vampire holding him. His father? Ravishing? Surely even these monsters were not that perverse. The vampire caught his look and burst out laughing, so loudly that every eye in the room turned towards them, some so hostile that Alfred found himself shrinking closer to the vampire.
“Something amuses you, Herbert?”
The voice. The voice of the man from the bathroom. It was as dark and silken and sinful as Alfred remembered. His ears burned and he bit on his lip, yelping when his new fangs cut into the flesh and he felt the blood welling up.
“My lovely little darling is having some awfully silly ideas, father,” the vampire, Herbert, replied. He sounded like he was still laughing, but Alfred didn’t dare to raise his head to see, not with those dark eyes so close.
He saw the hand and instant before a needle-sharp nail touched beneath his chin and raised his face to that of Herbert’s father, the dark-haired, black-clad master of this place. Dark as midnight, the eyes fixed on his face and he felt himself trembling.
If the vampire had reached into his body and pulled out his heart, he could not have cut him as deeply as those eyes did, tearing through every mental barrier he might have had, pinning him back against Herbert and making him quake with emotions he didn’t understand.
Then the full, pale lips curved slowly.
“Welcome, brav Alfred, to our eternal company,” the dark-haired vampire murmured, his voice wrapping around Alfred like a cord, drawing him forward until he was barely an arm’s width from the vampire. That proud head bowed towards him and he felt the brush of those lips against his again. A nail traced along his jaw and he tried futilely to stifle a whine. “Do not fear, little one.”
“I-I’m n-not...”
The indulgent smile that played briefly across the dark vampire’s face made his insides twist in strange manners and he clenched his hands to stop them trembling. “Herbert will take the most tender of care of you.”
“Oh, I truly will!” Herbert’s arms were suddenly around him once more and Alfred jolted with shock. Somehow, he had forgotten the pale haired vampire was standing behind him. “And thank you, father, for your most generous gift.”
“Gift?!” Alfred squeaked as he was firmly pulled back against Herbert’s taller, slimmer body and Herbert’s father silently glided away, taking his haunting eyes and his enigmatic smile with him.
A pale finger pointed over his shoulder towards the staircase. A familiar feminine figure in a blood-red dress was slowly descending towards the dark vampire. “Father has his little entertainments,” Herbert purred close to his ear. “And he provides me with mine.”
Even across the wide floor, Alfred could see by the colour in the girl’s skin that she was still alive, mortal. Part of him wanted to scream out to warn her, but another part, a hungry, wanting part, growled, and he felt his lips draw back from his teeth.
“Yes...” Herbert moaned against his ear. Alfred felt the hands sliding over his hips, and felt the vampire pressing against him. There could be no mistaking his intentions. Alfred knew that he should protest, argue, shy away, but he found himself panting as he watched the dark vampire pulling the girl close.
She struggled now, shied where Alfred no longer could, tried to ward the dark vampire off with slender wrists that were pushed aside without mercy.
Alfred’s breath was hissing between his fangs. He felt hands kneading at his thighs and was dazedly startled to realise they were his own. Herbert’s hand slipped between cloth and flesh, and their hips were shifting together as the girl’s head was pulled to one side. Her neck was bared. Long, pale, inviting.
Alfred lunged forward, hungrier than he could ever remember being, a bestial sound escaping him as the dark vampire brought his lips down to that throat. And he threw his head back with a keening cry as fangs ripped into flesh and the girl screamed.
Hands were on him, pulling him holding him, and again, he was brought to his knees on the floor. And as the girl’s blood spattered the polished floor before him and the vampire moved on him, over him, in him, he arched with want and need.
The sound of vampires’ laughter echoed around him, a symphony of damnation.