Vlad the Inhaler

Alright, once again I have literally stolen my story from Christoph Reilly. I really do need to stop that, but, well, he's creative and I'm not, so it's much easier to steal his work than do my own. Again I have changed exactly those small details as to make it difficult for him to sue me, but that's about it. My lawyer has suggested I provide a link to his story to prove that I am not hiding from the similarities. (Link to story I ripped off: "The Night Captive Part 2: Blood Lust.")

Tracing the gentle curves of Earth’s bosom, the sun slipped a finger of light through the velvet slit between the curtains of Vlad’s room, ejaculating a luminous shaft upon the rug and leaving as a token in the otherwise dark apartment a golden pool of light that glimmered mockingly then evanesced away. Night had come.

Vlad sat upon the edge of his bed and snarled at the wan light, watching the circle fade. A true vampire, his contempt for the sun, even a sun in retreat, irked him. Feral teeth shone blue-black in the dimness as the room grew dark again.

He turned and ran slender fingers through the soft auburn tresses of a lifeless female form lying beside him, allowing a smile to play upon his lips. So beautiful. Skin soft and pliant. She’d given herself to him without complaint, unresisting, wholly last night. But she was cold. She lay face down, nestled in the tumult of last night’s bedding, silken sheets gathered in wrinkles and piles around her nakedness, framing her as if for a photograph.

He turned from her and watched the orange gauze of sunset through the slit in the curtains, watched the sun die a red death upon the horizon. He stood. Not tall and not broad at the shoulders or chest, he was a diminutive figure in the dark, a body destined for a life of shadows and darkness. He went to the closet and donned his hunting clothes. Black trousers, white button-down, black waistcoat and a long black cape lined with crimson silk. The soles of his polished shoes would make no whisper when he walked.

He walked the streets glancing only once at the half moon above as it ducked and wove round the pillowy clouds trying to smother it. Good hunting weather.

He passed rows of shabby tile-roofed buildings, avoiding the circles of light that flickered around gas lamps set regularly along the cobbled street. A cat called piteously from an alley, caterwauling and awaiting the attention of its owner, a bowl of warm milk and a place beside the fire.

Vlad walked past it all, peering through windows in search of prey. He came to the base of a long hill and climbed the winding road slowly. His breathing grew heavy with the effort; he was weakened for need of blood. He stopped half way up, his hand reaching for his waistcoat pocket and trembling, but he resisted, fought back the urge and pressed on.

Then he saw her. Motion caught his eye from the second story of a shabby, grey-planked inn as she moved across the backlit frame of an open window, little more than a flash of pale bare skin. Ghostly almost in the darkness, she was lovely; he could tell with certainty despite what little he had seen.

He paused and scented the air, nostrils expanding, drawing in the aroma of warm blood coursing through her veins, sweet red currents, wine of the undead. He felt his heart start to race as anticipation took him. He moved to the door, but stopped. The innkeeper would ask questions. He was not in the mood for questions. Not in the mood to kill beings beneath his dignity.

Glancing over his shoulder, he slunk round the side of the inn into the blackest shadows and, with a word, transformed himself to his bat form, his slight human body becoming mouse small with wings that unfolded like leather kites and carried him aloft. He darted triumphantly from the alley, soared out over the street and swung round, dove into the window through which the nubile and naked beauty had so recently been exposed.

He struck the screen with such force he was nearly knocked out. His little bat body bounced back and tumbled down the roof tiles like a wounded bean bag, his wings whumping audibly as he pattered noisily downward and lodged firmly in the rain gutter, stuck sound.

“Son of a bitch!” he said, though the words sounded naught but a squeak upon his batty lips. “When the hell did they install screens?”

It took him a few moments to regain his composure, but soon he set himself to the task of extricating himself from the rain gutter in which he was fairly wedged. He flapped and thrashed for some time, squeaking inarticulate profanities that echoed down the metal drainpipe and trumpeted feebly into the night, until, at length, he acquiesced to the futility of his circumstance.

Face pressed into the bottom of the rain gutter as it was, little bat rump pointed skyward and not enough legs to give any sort of thrust, it became obvious that his only hope of escape lay in resuming human form. He sighed, a whole bodied thing that swelled his furry bat body briefly tighter in its trap. Knowing well this was not going to turn out pleasantly, he made the shift.

The weight of his body tore the gutter loose from the roof, and he fell to the ground with a cacophonous crash of hollow aluminum drain-piping and a litany of profanity. Landing on his back with a thud, he had what little wind he still possessed torn from him. He gasped and felt the familiar clutch of alveoli slamming shut, his lungs defiant despite his body’s demand for air.

“God damn it,” he said for the fortieth time in less than a minute. He tried to resist the urge again, still wanting to preserve the dignity of the night, but he could not breathe. His gasps risked becoming audible. He reached into his waistcoat pocket and pulled out the little white “L” of his inhaler and placed it to his lips. With a squeeze and “thwwwk” of expelled mist, he drew his asthma medicine into his lungs, felt the cold relief turn warm inside of him as his airways opened up again. He took the time to let his breathing return to normal before putting his inhaler away.

“Son of a bitch,” was all he said.

He looked up into the window, listening, certain that his victim had heard all the noise, but she was not there. He could hear the sound of a shower running somewhere inside the room. Huzzah! There was still a chance. She had not heard. He would still dine tonight! Still taste her.

He considered climbing the lattice on the side of the inn, but his arms were thin and his enthusiasm for feats of physicality had abated some with the debacle as a bat. He went to the front door and entered the inn.

“Can I help you?” greeted the innkeeper in a merry voice.

Vlad gave his most rictus hiss, fangs bared and both hands raised talon-like before him. With a subtle quiver of his head to lend ferocity to his breathy snarl, he turned and stalked up the stairs menacingly, the silken underbelly of his cape flickering in the lamp light as he whirled and went away. The innkeeper’s chin retracted, his round face pulling back into his fleshy neck as he frowned a wide, fat frown. “Odd duck, that,” he muttered and went back to his newspaper and tea.

Vlad found her room. He placed his hand upon the knob and his ear against the smooth wood. He could still hear the hiss of the shower spout, could picture her naked in the steamy wet. He drew in a long, hungering breath. He turned the knob slowly so as not to make a sound. It was locked.

“Shit.”

He tried the other way, but it was still locked. He jockeyed it back and forth a few times, making more noise than he wanted. Still it would not budge. He swore silently in his mind.

He leaned away, still holding the door knob but tilting away to the fullest reach of his slender arms. With a great heave, he threw himself against the door. Pain shot through his shoulder and down his arm. “Oh,” he cried, wincing and grinding his teeth. “Son of a…” He forced himself to silence. Jeezus that hurt. Wow. What was that thing made of, black oak for God’s sake? Who the hell put doors like that in a village inn?

Just then the maid came along, an ancient old crone pushing a rickety room service cart. “Can I help you?” she asked, her accent heavy and speaking the “h” with a throaty, almost “k” sound.

“Um, yes,” he said, his vampire mind ever quick as the night. “I’ve lost my room key, can you help me out?”

“Oh chur,” she said. “I wheel let ju een.”

He stood impatiently as the woman opened the door and then tottered on down the hallway. “Thanks,” he said and slipped inside, catlike and silent. He pushed the door closed and stalked towards the sound of the shower still audible across the room.

The door was half open. He could see the shower curtain drawn, steam rising thick from behind its blind, and the mirror obscured with fog. He could smell jasmine soap and blood. His heart began once more to race.

He slipped into the humid space and allowed himself a moment more to scent his prey before drawing back the curtain to expose her nakedness, sublimely feminine, glistening and wet. “Hah, hah!” said he, lowering his voice an octave and injecting a Transylvanian accent as best he could. “Good evening! You are mine!”

She turned and regarding him coolly, a querulous eyebrow raised. She had a tattoo of a Pit Bull on her right tit. It was extraordinarily large and the expression on its face was almost bored. She punched him in the mouth twice in rapid succession. Bam. Bam. He stumbled back and hit his head on the wall. Bam. She hit him again and he actually heard his left fang bounce into the sink with the clink of enamel on porcelain.

She drew back her fist to punch him again, but he raised his fierce talon-like hands up, fingers splayed and begging her to stop with wide apoplectic eyes. “I give, I give!”

She frowned at him and shook her head, seemingly confused, while water and steam glazed her perfect body and the Pitt Bull stood steady guard upon her shimmering breast. “Get out,” she said, fist still cocked.

“Okay, okay. Just let me find my tooth.” He turned and sought his incisor in the sink. Spotting it luckily stopped against the stopper in the drain, he plucked it out and quickly turned and fled.

Out in the darkness once more, the night air cooled the steam that lay upon his skin. He took out his inhaler and drew in a long burst. The hunt was not going very well. His mouth really hurt, and it was going to cost a fortune to get that tooth put back in again. He sighed.

He moped his way back down the hill, kicking pebbles and cursing the fate that had woven him such a sorry fate. He heard the cat once again yowling in the alley just down the street. He was still hungry. How humiliating. Left to feed on animals.

He moved into the alley and spotted the cat right away near the back. He hoped he wouldn’t have to give chase. He had so little of the hunter left in him tonight. But the cat came right up to him and wound itself round between his feet. It purred loudly. He picked it up and held it to his bosom, stroking it softly for a while. He didn’t want to do it. It was too humiliating. But he could smell its blood, could hear its tiny heart beating inside, pushing nourishment through the hot tributaries of its veins. He was starving.

He raised the kitty to his lips and bit in. He winced a little as the tender hole where his fang had been gave him a jolt of pain. He drew the warm sustenance from the cat, closing his eyes in the ecstasy of satiation and sucking its blood into his mouth. So he didn’t see the light come on.

The door opened a moment after that and an old woman stepped out into the alley with a bowl of warm milk in her hand. “Wilhelmina,” she called to her pet, but discovered suddenly that her poor kitty was in the hands of Vlad. “Oh my,” she gasped, then, more loudly, “Stop, stop! Stop I say!”

Vlad’s eyes popped open at her appearance and for the second time that night he found himself being charged by a woman, albeit this one a good forty or fifty years the senior of the last.

“Put my pussy down,” she cried. “Let her go!”

Vlad turned and ran, but did not let go his meal. The price of this evening’s sustenance had been too dear. The old woman gave chase. “Wilhelmina, Wilhelmina,” she cried. “Help, help. Someone help me. He’s eating my pussy.”

Vlad dashed out into the street. The cat bit him and clawed him so furiously he had to let it go. “Shit!” He turned to run towards home, but saw two young men coming round the nearest corner just as he made to sprint.

“My pussy, he’s trying to eat it!” came the shrieks from behind him.

Vlad turned to go back up the hill, but a tall, elegant blonde woman had just stepped out of the house next to the alley on the left and was staring squarely at him with a curious expression dawning on her face.

As the old woman trundled out of the alley behind him the two young men drew near and regarded him severely, their eyes traveling obviously back and forth between the vampire and the irate, gray-haired woman still bellowing about her cat behind his back. “My pussy,” she called again but saw that the cat had got away at last.

Vlad looked left and right, trapped. The pretty blonde woman looked as if she might vomit, but the two young men were not so kind.

“Sicko,” said one.

“Pervert,” said the other.

Vlad at first thought to argue, to defend, but at length decided there was no point. He crossed the street and walked silently home. He sat down on his bed and took off his shoes, tossing his cape onto the floor.

He rolled the motionless female figure on his bed over and stared into her vacant face. One of her eyes was stuck closed, an eyelash coming off. The same one that always came off. It really irked him, because he’d spent the extra money to get the very best model that money could buy. And still this eyelash was always coming off. They just didn’t make sex dolls like they used to anymore. Not even the good ones. His life sucked, and eternity was going to be a long, long time.