Dead Surround - The Julia Poe Vampire Chronicles (29 page)

Georgia, the smaller of the two, began to lick at the giant orbs of Shandra’s bosom, capturing erect nipples and massaging the neglected breast. As a finale Georgia’s fangs grew two inches and buried them into Shandra’s tit. Shandra moaned and groaned like she was on the verge of an orgasm.

“Shandra only does this for me,” he said, staring down at a boiling Poe.

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Her nostrils flaring, she looked him in the eyes.

“You kill me tonight, Trench. I won’t play any more of your games.” Abruptly she stood up and walked toward the door. She ignored the jibes and jeers thrown her way. She just hoped she wouldn’t trip wearing the stupid high heels.

He was next to her and holding her arm in a second. She could not dislodge his hold so she continued to walk outside. Straightaway his car pulled up, and the driver let them in. The silence in the car was thick. Poe imagined shooting the master vampire in the head and dousing his face with more garlic water.

When they reached the music hall, Poe let herself out and walked as fast as she could. Of course the vampire was immediately at her side. “You want to die, Julia Poe?” he asked.

“I don’t. But another stunt like that, and I’ll hang myself to save you the trouble,” she said and climbed the escalator. Trench grabbed her wrist until she was facing him. “You will follow me to my quarters,” he said, stirring her to the direction of his room. “I’ll make you pay for everything you’ve done to me and to this town if that is what you wish.”



Poe tried twisting her wrist from his grasp but was unsuccessful. She held onto a post with her free hand when they reached the top of the escalator, but she was yanked back. The three-inch heels didn’t cut her any slack. Finally Poe was left with no other choice other than to bite the vampire’s wrist. Trench’s fangs elongated. She could see the outline through the 264

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scarf. Hissing, he encircled Poe’s neck with his other hand and squeezed until she was near suffocation.

“You test me, girl, and you’ll regret it,” he promised. Tired of the young woman’s antics, the master vampire swept Poe off her feet and carried her. He walked as steadily as he could under the circumstances. He had a reputation to uphold, and running like a jackass in his own home was not even a remote possibility.

Quillon Trench couldn’t fly, nor could he lift multi-ton objects like Kawana and Ed. He was stronger and fiercer, of course, than average vampires. But what set Trench apart was his grand vision. The vampire always had a plan. And he was far from antiquated like the Council that was no more. Trench was a modern vampire of means. After Sainvire’s citywide theft of their food source, only Trench came away nearly unscathed. He had placed his cattle all over the city and not just in one place like the other master vampires had erroneously done.

He had the entire Downtown population eating out of his hands.

When they reached his quarters, a room as sparsely decorated as Poe’s but multiple in scale, Trench threw her on the circular bed set in the middle of the room. Everything was white except for the four Picasso paintings from the famous Blue Period and the black satin sheets on the bed.

“Just kill me, Trench,” Poe found herself saying.

Her chest heaved from fear. The vampire’s fangs remained sharp and menacing. She imagined the vampire’s fangs to look sharp and fiendish from the indentations behind the scarf.

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Trench kicked something from under the bed, and a crescent headboard rose up. “What would be the fun in that?” he said. Poe shuddered. She remembered Megan’s story about how Trench drank from her through a straw attachment while Sainvire watched helplessly. Another glaringly unforgettable fact was the torture and bleeding of Sister Ann and Goss. The vampire was demented.

Poe scrambled off the bed and tried to assume a fighting stance. She was keenly aware that her ankle-strap high heels were a problem. One slip and her ankles would give out. “Do you really think you can fight me with those shoes, Julia?”

The cattle rustler wavered but stood her ground.

“At least I’ll die trying,” she said, her voice huskier with fear.

His once angry blues crinkled in amusement.

This effrontery pissed her off. Ankle breakage or no, she kicked the back of his knees until the vampire fell. A barrage of Muay Thai kicks and punches followed until her knuckles were bleeding. Trench, still on the floor, didn’t even block Poe’s hits. Her shins, scrubbed of calluses, hurt from his hard, dead limbs. She wasn’t making a dent, so she moved away from him. By the entertainment corner she spied a heavy vase and reached for it.

“That’s a rare Lalique, Julia,” he said tensely.

“Put it down right now.”

Poe smiled. The hated vampire was a collector.

A connoisseur. “You’re fast, Trench. Why don’t you come get it?” The moment she saw him lunge, she threw the substantial opaque vase to the wall, shattering it to pieces.

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He caught her by the waist, but she had time to pick up a sculpture that looked like it was crafted of ice. With all her might she clonked the vampire over the head three times until the heavy piece cracked in the middle and fell from her hands.

Black blood trickled above his temple due to Poe’s perseverance. He raised his hand as if to strike her but stopped himself. Instead he forcefully threw her until she landed in the middle of his bed. Before Poe could blink, the vampire had her wrists handcuffed to the headboard. Poe pulled at the cuffs, but her struggle only served to tighten them.

“You sociopath son of a bitch!” Poe yelled, and tears of frustration fell from her eyes. “Kill me already, you warped bastard!” she taunted him. “You fucking elephant man!”

“Keep talking, Julia,” he said with razor in his voice. “That was a Gehry sculpture you just hit me with.” He opened the drawer of the circular bed stand and extracted a hand-carved long-blade silver knife.

Poe’s tirades died in her mouth.

“Knife’s got your tongue, Julia?” he laughed.

Slowly he cut away her clothes in clean lines, ensuring the silver touched her skin and elicited goosebumps. He took his time. “I’ve heard you were modest, Julia Poe. I was told that you didn’t let anyone help you bathe or dress. You kept to your room. Could it be because you were naked underneath your robe?”

Poe looked away from him and mumbled until Trench asked, “What was that you just said?”

“Go to hell.”

Trench guffawed. He looked like a deranged Rorschach. “You know what I’m going to do with 267

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you after I cut the clothes off your body? Hmm?”

When Poe didn’t answer he continued. “I’m going to ask you about every little scar you have. Ah yes, I’ve been told you’ve got plenty.”

“What makes you think I’m going to tell you?”

she said while facing him with fire in her eyes. He had cut everything off her body except for the straps of her heels, a lacy black push-up bra that made her breasts look like overripe fruit, and matching panties.

“Oh you’ll tell me alright.” As soon as he said those words, a knock sounded. She watched the vampire rise with elegant fluidly like he was royalty.

The door opened and a handsome vampire with violet eyes and an impeccable Armani suit entered the room. He was carrying a cage ensconced in a sheet.

“You can place the cage in the middle there where the lady can see it.”

“Yes, sir,” said the man that looked nothing short of a model.

“Joel, what do you think of the vampire rustler?”

Trench asked. He narrowed his eyes in contemplation. Poe flushed all over and bit her lower lip. She tried bringing her knees to her chest but Trench sat back on the bed and clenched her ankles where they lay with an iron hand. The vampire was humiliating her, and it was working.

“She’s exquisite, sir, despite her scars,” the blond Adonis answered.

“Would you like to see her breasts, Joel?” he asked, cutting away at the air with his knife for effect.

Poe couldn’t take the demoralization anymore.

She stilled her voice and said, “I’m glad I ruined your beautiful face, and now you have to walk around like 268

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the invisible man, you bastard!” In reality near-nakedness before her enemy stole her courage away.

“You’re crying, my dear. How quaint,” he observed, snipping away at the center of her brassiere. He pushed the cups to the side to get a better view of her full breasts. “Beautiful peach nipples, don’t you think? Would you like to touch them, Joel?”

The vampire guest leaned over the bed and cupped her breasts with cold dead hands. He squeezed and pulled at her nipples. Poe forced herself to stare at Trench to show that her spirit wasn’t cowed. His eyes, however, were on Joel’s groping hands, and they were looking flinty.

“That’s enough. Get out,” he commanded without saying another word until his stooge had left.

He stood by the cage. He lifted the blanket, and Poe saw for the first time in six weeks her loyal dog, Penny.

“Pen!” she said, crying silently. The dog was well groomed and looked healthy.
Please, Mom and
Dad, don’t let him kill Penny in front of me.

Trench sat down next to her. He took in Poe’s pleasantly plump lower lip, trembling from crying, and her perfectly shaped breasts. He pointed at the scar above her right breast. “Where did you get this one?”

Poe looked at her dog and took a deep breath.

“Your man, Pengle, pierced me with his pirate hook and dangled me off the ground.” Kawana had killed the vampire who had it in for Poe for cutting off his arm.

Again the master vampire’s eyes burned. “Well he’s dead now,” he said in a barely controlled voice.

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“I assume these thin scars running along your arms were acquired when you dove through the window at the Eastern Columbia?”

Poe nodded. “What about these on your left thigh?” he asked. He ran his cold hand on her thigh and traced the old cuts.

“One is from a nail wound. The other two holes are from Sainvire’s nails.” His eyebrow upturned in curiosity as he raised the girl’s thigh. “He skewered you?” The girl nodded but said no more. “Why is that, Julia Poe?”

“I shot him in the kidneys, gullet, stomach, and the knee caps,” she said matter-of-factly.

Trench laughed at this. “Lovers’ spat, was it?”

Poe remained silent and looked at her dog, sitting in the cage and looking worried. “I see a clean bullet wound on your arm here.” He ran a hand on her left arm. “Tell me about your ear.”

“My earlobe. A halfdead ate it for revenge a few days after I yanked off his ear,” answered Poe robotically. “Are we done here?”

“Not in the least,” he answered, pulling out his knife. He cut off her panties until she was completely exposed. “Why, you’re hairless all over, Julia Poe!

And you’re a beautiful sight.”

He rose from the bed and began undressing. He hung his coat jacket carefully on the back of a chair.

Poe watched him until only the scarf about his face remained. His body was slim but muscular and oh-so-white. She thought he would unveil his face, but she was wrong. He switched off the lights and joined her in bed.

In the dark he removed her strapped heels. Poe heard them clunk noisily on the wooden floor. “Any 270

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false move, Julia,” he warned, “and your dog’s dead.”

“I’m tied up,” she whispered, fearful of what the vampire would do to her. She was the cause of his disfigurement, and he wanted revenge.

“I know,” he said.

He found her mouth and sucked on her lower lips. She could feel the crags on his face as he kissed her face and inserted his arctic tongue into her mouth.

When she didn’t respond he ended the kiss. “You will kiss me back and enjoy it, Julia, or else I’m not going to be pleased.”

When he insinuated his cold tongue into her mouth, she forced herself to kiss him back, imagining Sainvire or Maclemar making love to her. She kissed so thoroughly that the vampire had to pull back.

“Easy, gorgeous. We have the entire night ahead of us.” He sucked on her right earlobe, her intact ear, and licked a path down her neck to her breasts.

Trench spent such a good amount of time licking and pawing her breasts that Poe found herself squirming from lust, and the feeling angered her.

He kissed her flat stomach while tightening and pulling at her nipples. The vampire only let go of her breasts when he reached her thighs which were clamped shut. “Julia, open your legs to me. Now.”

Poe thought of Penny, and a defeated sound escaped from her lips. She opened her legs to the master vampire she abhorred. His tongue penetrated her once, and he spoke with triumph. “You are extremely wet down here, my dear. I’m glad that you’re enjoying yourself.” He resumed tonguing her slowly and expertly, and try as she might Poe couldn’t help but moan. Tears streamed down her 271

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eyes as she experienced waves of pleasure.
I’m a
fucking whore, and I deserve to die
, she thought.

He entered her slowly and languorously until she bit down on her lower lip to keep from making any more traitorous sounds. “You feel so tight. So good, Julia,” he said hoarsely. “How many times have you made love to other men?”

Poe swallowed deeply, her throat dry. “Three and a half.”

“Three and a
half
times?” the vampire asked incredulously. “Explain yourself,” he ordered as he continued to thrust into her.

“Three times with Sainvire and another with a human. We got interrupted during the last bit,”

answered Poe without emotion.

Quillon Trench snorted. “You are delightful, my dear. I want to keep you as my little pet forever,” he sighed. “Sainvire is such a monk! Only three times with this body? What an idiot!” Poe kept her mouth tightly shut. The love of her life was dead, and here was her enemy slighting him and rutting on her.

“Sorry if I’m going at a slow pace,” apologized Trench. “I just don’t want to hurt you. Last time I fucked a human, she bled to death.”