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Somebody - who could only be The Boy Eric - had definitely put so in her drink It was now in her brain
Not BOP, because that did blow-all to vas of a headache She wished she&039;d paid s experts - EB Fern, Jerry Cornelius, Semolina Pilchard - she&039;d run into lately But they were all so boring, like people who tell you their a dreams or enthusiasts for new systems of physical jerks Lord, she re the art grow fondlier in the &039;90s the haunted puffers who patronised the Lord of Strange Deaths&039; chain of opiu vah as a bat was huht point six!
The lair of the Black Monks was a student cos and a portrait of Dracula propped up in front of the unused fireplace Joss-sticks burned in pots The Count was angry, as if he smelled the incense and didn&039;t like it Dracula&039;s snarl was in slow motion His cloak riffled in Carpathian winds The folds of crepe les Rats
Sohtened her
She looked again Things crawled in the periphery of her vision, as if the world werejust beyond her eyeline
DeBoys manoeuvred her around the furniture Transparent inflatable chairs, a low plastic coffee table, a couch shaped like giant lips Four lava lamps were placed around the roo , the walls, the faces
On a large round soft thing like an upended paddling pool, one wo her The woman on top was Fran, the Black Monkess Black Nun? Her robe rode up on her thighs - her flanks were reptile-scaled by the lava light - and her hood was down, unloosing her cascade of hair The wo, stoned out of her tiny little mind She was the chortler Her white shift was cut low in the front Boob spill was inevitable Did every sweet young thing these days have a &039;sacrificial victim&039; dress in their wardrobe? Kate saw the pulse in Jess&039;s throat Red-and-blue traceries of veins flowed under her skin
Another va with soulful eyes A beautiful boy in a white fur coat and turquoise trews Paul Durward, of course He had pageboy blond hair and girly lips, though his ave vampires an imbecile look Durward drooled a little On the point of feeding, everyone was an imbecile, she supposed Instinct took over She was no different Especially not now Her mouth et too She could taste blood
Fran held an open razor in front of Jess&039;s face, drawing her gaze, catching the shifting light Pearl handle, steel blade Fran sloaved the cutthroat with a li a circle like an owl&039;s head
Even if she weren&039;t tripping, Jess would have been fascinated Kate couldn&039;t take her eyes off the sharp edge, either A drop of blood trickled along the blade as it turned, forever al back
&039;We&039;re not all students in our little group,&039; DeBoys explained &039;Paul is as enerous to the Cause&039;
&039;Hellfire to quaff,&039; said Durward, deadpan
Dutifully, fingers snapped Even Fran joined in, with her free hand
Kate couldn&039;t snap her fingers She&039;d never got the trick She couldn&039;t wiggle her ears, either Though she could touch the tip of her retrousse nose with the point of her vaue, so there!
She actually did that now To prove to herself that she was in control Her body would do what she told it to Except she wasn&039;t de silly Double rats Though steady on her feet, she was losing her s
The Black Monks had seen this before
She was tripping
Fresh cuts on Jess&039;s arms and breasts were sealed by Elastoplasts Kate could smell the blood
Gold Top
She knehat DeBoys had done To Jess, to her Also, to Carol and Laura
She&039;d been only partially right in thinking herself ienic ergot Just sed, it did nothing to vaan Delt, for one, had tried it and been disappointed But if a warm person took BOP, it entered their bloodstream If a vampire drank that blood, then
SNAP CRACKLE BOP
She hadn&039;t drunk much in the Chapel Just ounces Very fresh DeBoys lass when he went to the bar supposedly to buy her a drink
What a gent What a git
Maybe the druggies were right Thinking clearly, along neural paths she didn&039;t usually tread, she put it all together The BOP in Carol&039;s and Laura&039;s blood The bitemarks on Fran and Keith&039;s necks
She understood Eric DeBoys&039; kink The girls took the drug, the designated murderers drank their BOP-laced blood, then DeBoys bit theh passed up the chain to the Grand Master of the Black Monks Like Renfield, Dracula&039;s first British disciple, DeBoys saw hi lower forms of life But that wasn&039;t how the Siphonaptera Syndroer fleas have little fleas, upon their backs to bite &039;em,
And little fleas have littler fleas, and so, ad infinitum
Eric DeBoys wasn&039;t Grand Master He was the Littlest Flea If he needed atrade name, it shouldn&039;t exalt his status He wasn&039;t Jack the Ripper, the Gorilla of Soho or the Boston Exsanguinator He was the Mite The tiniest tick, the pinprick pinhead There were no lower forirls, directly But he was the killer The absence in Thoraphs the varapher&039;s brains the culprit B Division was after Case closed Now, all she had to do was live through the night and bring in her ry, she darted close to DeBoys She was older and stronger than him Her talons traced his face She wound a nail into his chin diue slid over his finely stubbled throat She could taste the s his face off his skull She thought about kissing hiasm
He pushed her away firmly and took hold of the back of her neck, as if she were a cat who uided her across the rooripped her arether
She was being led to water She was to be e she knew
&039;Once ere hunters, Kate,&039; said DeBoys, lecturing again &039;Noe&039;re pets That&039;s against nature Croft has lost his way, stood back, left us free We respect the example he set, BD - e could live by our wits and teeth Before ere coddled, registered, stamped, folded, numbered, briefed, debriefed and shut in coffins We are vipers,We should be proud It&039;s not war; it&039;s the wild The natural state of things This pretty bird is for our pleasure, our sustenance Jessica is our gift to you, Kate She&039;s nothing A circulatory systerandfather would understand We respect Van Helsing This murder is a tribute to the name&039;
This murder?
Was Kate the weapon or the culprit?
She tried not to be forced further That bloody St Bartolph&039;s scarf had been a snare It had pulled her to this
&039;Youwicked to you, Sister Kate,&039; said DeBoys Anna ree you find out who you are We admire you, sincerely More than Croft More than Dracula We want to help you unlock your potential, as your example has shown us You can be a Black Monk A Black Abbess, even Just drink, pretty creature It&039;s such a s one of them But it&039;s a liberation This bird&039;s pals know about it They ink crucifixes on their bodies for each of us they cross off We don&039;t need to keep tallies to impress each other or scare our ene, baby Our trophies and markers are under the skin, in the blood, in the head Once you&039;re free, you&039;ll see&039;
Her red thirst raged Her teeth tore the inside of her ry with the Black Monks, furious at DeBoys but that compounded her need for blood She couldn&039;t resist or attack or hurt the people ere doing this to her - and, no h the ionosphere on BOP, she knew so done to her - but Jess Van Helsing lay there, available, unresisting, ripe, delicious, bleeding
Fran played the razor over Jess&039;s wounds She teased an Elastoplast off the girl&039;s boso away the just-formed scab but didn&039;t slice off any more skin
Blood welled from the cut
She saw, in s across a vast human landscape - the breast a hillside, the veins underground rivers, the wound a crevice, the blood a geyser
&039;Go on, woet some in!&039;
She froze The flesh map under her was a person Kate was expected to bite, to suck more blood and BOP To surrender humanity, to unleash her inner vae of discovery But to trip was also to stumble and fall
Life was a trip Love was a trip Murder was a trip