He wasn’t sure if it was a good thing that he wasn’t dead or not. Despite waking up to being alive, the cards did not seem promising that he would be living through this.
He didn’t open his eyes, not at first. He woke up, he was conscious, though his head felt incredibly heavy, like he was drunk and hungover at the same time. The black spots from before seemed to still be sticking around, floating around on the back of his eyelids like little fuzzy dust motes. His lungs still burned, but his blood no longer felt like acid, so that was a little better.
He was dizzy and confused. The whole room seemed to be upside down. His head felt extra full and sloshy. As he tried to shake it to clear some of the heaviness, he came to the realization that he couldn’t actually move his head at all. He tensed up, his fight or flight response kicking in. Only, he couldn’t move anything at all. His body jerked against the restraints he was now aware were confining his wrists, ankles, and forehead.
The room wasn’t upside down, that voice in his head told him. He was.
His throat hurt as he screamed, the air cutting his throat like razor blades. His voice was raw and raspy from being nearly choked to death only a short while earlier. Despite the pain, he screamed and screamed until his throat was raw and no more sound would come out. The voice in his head pointed out that it hadn’t really taken that long to lose his voice. It also let him know that screaming was pointless, that one one would come. It was right, no one came.
His throat hurt so bad. He dreamed of water like a man in the desert.
Every breath hurt. He tried to breath carefully, shallowly, but not so shallow as to hyperventilate. It was a fine, difficult line. Each breath of air into his lungs was sandpaper to his raw esophagus.
He struggled against his restraints again, testing them, but he couldn’t move his head to see exactly how he was restrained. He was forced to look forward, though upside down, towards the entry into the room. It was really dark in the room, making it difficult to see much of anything. What he could make out in the extremely dim lighting made him sure that he was not going to be leaving this shitty factory alive. He tried to swallow but his throat was full of dry dust and pain.
Something was etched into the floor, various symbols. He didn’t recognize them, but they felt demonic. The snarky voice in his head chimed in helpfully that he didn’t know enough about demonology to tell the difference between demonic symbols and children’s scribbles.
Everything became incredibly real in that moment. He wanted to laugh. It wasn’t the kidnapping, or the Spider-cat demon, not the shooting, no, none of that. Strapped upside down to some sort of gurney or table or something, staring at some odd demonic symbols, knowing what was coming next, it was really sinking in now, really hitting home. He had known it, but now he knew. He was going to die here. She was going to kill him, going to drain the blood from him until…oh god, he was going to die. He was going to die. He was such a fucking idiot.
Once he accepted the facts, he felt oddly calm and contemplative. His horrible snark noted that it wasn’t like he had a whole lot else to do at the moment, or choice in the matter.
This was different than his time with Angelina in the past. Those times, she had taken his blood and mixed it with her spell components. She had never summoned anything when he was around, so he didn’t know what went into it.
God he had been so naive. Such a fucking dunce. He should have figured out a whole lot sooner what was going on. Past Anri was an idiot. His head throbbed, feeling stupidly too big, filled with too much blood. The spots on his vision were quickly shifting from black to white. His feet felt numb.
He was mildly impressed at the complicated and elaborate symbols carved into the concrete, which just pissed him off. The symbol was elegant and strong all at the same time, with a strangely masculine feel to it. It was all enclosed in a large circle of black powder that smelled like ash. The symbol inside looked a bit like a sideways tower, complete with windows and a cross in the center when he applied a little imagination. It was carved into the floor in one continuous line, at least what he could see before it disappeared from his sight under his head. He had a disturbing inkling about why the line disappeared beneath his head.
Anri’s head pounded as all of his blood pooled in it.
He hung upside down for what felt like hours but was probably more like ten minutes. It was hard to tell when you were upside down, fully restrained and with no way to gauge passing time in the darkness. He tested his bonds again, flexing and stretching, but it was impossible, he was unable to loosen his restraints even a tiny bit. Some fucking vampire he was. At least the collar was gone and he could breath. He traced the symbol over and over again in his head to keep his mind occupied, burning it into his brain.
He could hear skittering, though he couldn’t look around to see what it was. It made his skin crawl, and he wasn’t sure if he would prefer it to be bugs, rats or the demon.
A few impossibly long moments later he realized that it was definitely the worst as the Spider-cat slunk into view, its clawed baby hands clicking on the floor.
His calm complacency disappeared and he was reintroduced to his fear. The demon had a very particular smell to it, a little like burnt sugar and cloves, but also like cat. The smell wasn’t completely unpleasant.
When his heart slowed down again and the fear receded slightly, the demon slowly approached him, getting closer to him than he was comfortable with. It perched on the wall, five of it’s baby hands attached at impossible angles. Its cheshire grin was definitely too big for its face. He wasn’t sure if it was the angle or if the demon’s mouth really was larger than its face. It watched him carefully, reaching a long, black tongue out of its mouth and licking at wiry white whiskers. He could feel the creature evaluating him from the short distance.
Now that he was stuck here looking at it, he noticed it was furry and black, even on its slick-looking legs. Its baby hands were not so similar to human hands but kind of more resembling a sloth’s paws, three two-knuckled fingers and an opposable thumb. The blood red spirals that coated the demon’s pelt were mesmerizing, intricate and beautiful in a sort of terrifying way. The demon’s body was not segmented like a spider but instead had the sleek and feline body of a cat.
The demon stared at him with strange yellow-green feline eyes. This would have been the most ‘normal’ part of the creature, if there had only been two. Anri found the extra six pairs a bit disconcerting.
He cringed as it jumped off the wall with a graceful, fluid motion. The body moved in a very feline way, but the legs were all spider as it made its way closer to Anri. It stopped when it was close enough and tentatively reached out one of its odd little baby paws. He struggled to jerk away from the creature ,but was unable to move an inch. Despite the cold, Anri could feel the sweat trickling down face.
The Spider-cat caressed his face, a slight brushing of its paw against his cheek. The gesture was so tentative and hesitant that it bordered on innocent, but the wrongness of the creature scared him thoroughly. He didn’t want it to touch him but he was unable to move, fully restrained. Anri shivered and closed his eyes tightly as if he could hide from the creature. “Go away, go away, go away,” he chanted like a protection spell.
The feeling of the baby-paw on his face with his eyes closed was even worse, but he couldn’t open them. Another paw tangled a little in his hair. Another one gently touched his arm. Anri’s whole body trembled against his restraints. His mind shut down, fear overwhelming any rationality he might have been able to muster. The demon was touching him with several of its baby paws, with too many hands. Its hands were everywhere, oh god, they were everywhere. They were cool and smooth against his skin and he trembled uncontrollably.
There was a pinching sensation on his arm. At first he thought the demon had stung him with its scorpion barbed tail, but when it happened again it felt more like something had been pulled from his skin. He whined pathetically as he felt the raspiness of the Spider-cat demon’s very cat-like tongue against the pinched spot.
As much as he didn’t want to open them, he had to see what it was doing to him. Was this part of Angelina’s plan? The demon had moved up the side of the gurney from what Anri could tell, hanging on to the side at impossible angles. It licked at his arm, then moved to another spot closer to his hand. One baby hand removed a shard of glass that was jutting out of his arm, half healed over. It dropped the small shard of glass to the floor, then licked the reopened wound.
Reality dawned on him with the spasm of pain from the demon’s tongue dipping inside the cut. Angelina had summoned this demon here with his blood. That was how she found him. She had a bloodhound. Or rather a blood tracking Spider-cat demon. He really needed a better, shorter name for it.
The Spider-cat moved around his body, plucking glass and bits of debris out of his half-healed cuts, licking the wounds, and his blood, with its raspy tongue. The wounds tingled and itched as it licked them, a familiar itchiness as they healed. Unnatural calmness coated his brain and he gratefully accepted it, thankful for a disconnection from reality, however brief it may be.
Time passed and the room went from dim to dark. Eventually he heard the clippity-clop of Angelina’s heels as she made her way back to the room. Spider-cat jumped down and scuttled out of sight before she entered.
She walked into the room like royalty, if royalty also carried a Coleman lantern. The bright oil lamp burned Anri’s eyes, even after he closed them.
“Jonas! Get in here!” she screamed, ignoring him.
Cloak Guy, who’s real name was a mystery he didn’t care to investigate, shuffled in reluctantly. At least, it seemed reluctant to Anri, but he was upside down so it was kind of hard to tell.
“Bitch,” Anri rasped. His throat was swollen and dry and it hurt to talk. He was so thirsty, not for blood, but for water. He had never been this thirsty for anything that wasn’t blood before.
“Oh, I’m not gonna let a little name calling hurt my feelings, Anri dear. Jonas, get over here, bring me the hosing,” she demanded.
“It’s, um, Jason, ma’am,” Anri heard Cloak Guy correct gently.
“Whatever,” she replied distractedly, waving her hand in dismissal. She approached Anri, the majority of her body disappearing from his line of sight as she drew closer. There was a rustling sound like a package being ripped open. She rubbed something on his wrist, something wet, followed by the cold of evaporation. She leaned over and repeated this on his neck and he realized that she was wiping him with an alcohol wipe.
“Are you,” he coughed, ruining his dramatic taunting, “worried that I’m gonna get an infection after you kill me?”
She cackled that horrible laugh again. “Anri, I already told you I wouldn’t kill you. No, not me. I’m only cleaning the areas where i’m going to put in the needle so I don’t contaminate the circle. You know,” she put her hands down where he could see them and wiggled her fingers, “magic stuff.” Her laugh was cold.
Whatever-his-name-was held up some tubing for Angelina but it was too close to his face for him to get a good look at it. The part of the tubing he could see was transparent blue with a tamper clamp that dangled dizzyingly in his face. The sting of the needle piercing his skin had him tensing, first his left wrist, then his right. Angelina yanked painfully on each one. He heard the familiar sounds of ripping duct tape. She roughly tugged at the hosing as she duct-taped it against the side of the gurney. Anri struggled against his restraints again, his heart pounded in his chest.
He had to calm down. If he freaked out, if he couldn’t calm his frantically beating heart, his blood would flow out faster. “You’re a crazy bitch! Dude, hey guy, henchman,” Anri called out to Cloak Guy. He coughed again, all glass and sandpaper, then continued, “Why are you helping this bitch? Is she fucking you?”
Angelina slapped his face. It stung more than he thought it should, but his face was already puffy from being upside down for so long. “As if!” she hissed. “He’s my assistant.”
Cloak guy shifted uncomfortably. “Apprentice,” he corrected.
“Whatever she’s told you, it’s a lie.” He stopped to cough in dry, painful spasms. “She doesn’t even know your name. Don’t let her murder me,” Anri petitioned weakly.
“Jason, I’ve told you a million times, all these filthy bloodsuckers do is lie. His filthy blood will open the portal to increase my, um, our power. And, as a bonus, the world will have one less parasite in it. Win-win, right?”
Jason didn’t answer. “She’s lying,” Anri rasped. “Don’t be a murderer, Jason!”
Angelina kneeled down until she was face to face with Anri. “No more from you, you filthy parasite,” she said sweetly. She pulled the duct tape in front of his face with a ripping sound that echoed around the room, pushing it over his mouth and cutting off his voice. The action had his heart slamming against his ribs.
“Just, uh, hang tight,” she giggled. She placed a sloppy wet kiss on the end of his nose and he cringed. She turned away and began taping the tubing down the gurney and probably into the etching in the concrete below his head. When she finished, she turned around and removed the tamper. Anri’s frantic words were nothing more than moans. Henchman was pointedly avoiding eye contact.
Tendrils of heat bloomed where the needles pierced into his veins. The sensation of his blood being drawn from his body, from both wrists, was too real. He closed his eyes and moaned, not even trying for words.
“Oh, Anri, this is gonna be great. I’ve been working so long for this. I mean, it won’t be great for you, since it’s your blood that will open the portal and your life for the sacrifice. But, for me, it’s gonna be great,” she insisted jovially, rubbing her hands together expectantly.
Anri could do nothing but watch as his blood flowed through the blue tubing turning it black. After a few tense moments it leaked into the engraved canal on the floor, slowly oozing forward. Black blood, his blood, weaved hypnotically through the symbol. Transfixed, he watched his blood fill the symbol, staining it with his life. As the blood drained from him he felt woozy, adding to the dizziness he already felt. He longed to pass out, but he knew it wouldn’t be that easy. Nothing in his life ever was, it seemed.
The blood in the symbol slowly seeped through the etching. It was like watching an Etch-a-Sketch, the line slowly moving forward as if by an unseen hand until it filled the entire symbol.
Blood continued to drain from his wrists and he felt first pangs of true bloodlust simmer to life within him. That impartial voice in his head noted that since he and Seth had been together he hadn’t been hungry, even though he hadn’t drank any blood. He was hungry now, though. He could feel both Angelina and the henchman’s pulses like sirens calls, could feel the blood moving through their veins in a way that was more intimate than he wanted to feel with either of them.
Seth’s blood called to him. He could feel him, feel his Wren’s blood. It was closer than he thought it should be. Hope burned and died in his heart in an instant. Why hadn’t he felt the hunger before now? That voice in his head was growing fainter as his blood drained, but he heard it echo one last thought. Seth’s blood wasn’t the only body fluid he had consumed…
Anri giggled against the duct tape as he the realization hit his blood starved brain. Seth’s cum sated his bloodlust, and that was hilarious to him. Part of him realized he was hysterical, but he didn’t care.
Angelina laughed, too, clapping her hands in glee, which ruined his personal revelation. She was watching raptly as his blood began to shimmer and fizz with a sizzling noise. It evaporated into a thick red mist. Even so, his blood somehow continued to flow. The symbol was full but he could feel it still leaving his body. Shouldn’t someone turn it off?
He felt like maybe he wanted to throw up. He really, really didn’t want to throw up, as he would have to try not to choke on it, try to swallow it down again because of the duct tape. He tried to take deep breaths through his nose to calm his stomach, but he was so dizzy and disoriented that it was too difficult to do.
He felt for Seth through their connection again. He felt Seth, forcing himself to focus on that connection, trying to escape from this hell even if just for a moment. Was their connection real or was he hallucinating? He hoped it was a hallucination, because suddenly it felt like Seth was close. Really close. Seth couldn’t be here. He couldn’t let Angelina get him, too.
God, he wished Seth were here. Seth tasted amazing. His blood was perfection, and he was so, so thirsty. He wished Seth were here.
No, he didn’t. No, he didn’t want Seth here, didn’t want him to see him like this. What a stupid way to die. Angelina couldn’t have him. She couldn’t touch him, not his Seth.
His lust climbed through his veins, consuming him completely. He felt himself bleed away while his lust rose, pushing out rational thought, bringing out a more primal consciousness. He didn’t even try to fight it, what was the point. The lust seeped out of his veins and soaked into his muscles, into his skin until he was nothing but his lust.
Still, part of him watched. That voice, the detached, snarky voice in the back of his head continued to process what was happening to him, even through his lust.
The thick red cloud of misty blood caught his scattered attention, thoughts of Seth drifting away. Red mist was congealing in the air, forming small droplets. Those droplets combined together to make bigger ones as if he were watching stop motion animation. The droplets coalesced into a small ball over the etched cross in the center of the symbol.
A slow fire began at each needle in his arms, as if his boiling blood from the symbol was travelling back up the hosing and entering his body through the needles. The fire, once it hit his veins, traveled lightning fast, setting his whole body aflame. Screaming behind the tape, his sweat immediately coated his entire body, despite the chilled air in the room and he thrashed, or at least tried to, but his body was held tight. His blood, oh god, he could feel it bubbling inside his veins. The pain of it was deep and acute and filled him completely.
Through the pain he sensed something other tying to his blood, climbing it like a rope from somewhere else. Something was coming, something from another realm, and his blood had opened the door.
It was powerful. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Anri hoped that his blood wasn’t powerful enough to finish the portal. He knew that it was, though. He shouldn’t have known, since he had never really paid any attention to Angelina’s magic, but he just knew. He knew his blood would be strong enough to open the portal and bring whatever was coming to his realm.
He just didn’t know what would happen after that.
Dreadfully Erotic 