Chapter 291 - Army of the Undead part 3

We passed Vehnfear. The wolf had taken a hare and stood over the motionless animal, lapping the blood from its torn body. He looked up as we trekked past and wagged his tail, a canine grin on his bloody muzzle, and then he returned to his meal, licking its wounds.

We found that we had to keep mostly to the ground to cross this sandy terrain. We could not travel by leaping into the air, as we normally would have done. It was a lesson we learned quickly. We set off as we were wont to do, launching into the air in the usual manner, like silent missiles into the night sky, but when we returned to the earth—as the modern saying goes, what goes up must come down-- the dunes gave way beneath our feet and we quickly found ourselves enveloped, buried in drifts of cold sand like children in a snow bank. We were all quite startled, until we had dug ourselves out, and then we couldn't help but laugh. "I suppose we will have to walk," I said, brushing sand from my hair, and so we walked. Here and there, the ground was firm, or we could leap from stone to stone, but the dunes were impossible to fly across. In the desert, we had to travel as mortal men must travel.

Because we could not fly, it was nearly dawn when we took our sleeping prey. The nomads had camped for the night in an oasis, a pool of fresh water surrounded by verdant vegetation. It was a paradise fenced by hell, its greenery a shocking incongruity amid the rolling dunes, but we did not have time to wonder at it, or at the hump-backed creatures the nomads kept as slaves beasts.

We converged upon our victims—the smell of age and infirmity is very conspicuous to vampires—and jerked them from their oddly shaped tents. An old woman. A man whose internal organs were diseased. Eris took the burly man who was unlucky enough to be standing guard that night. He was neither old nor sick, but we had no choice in the matter. The moon was too bright, and the guard too attentive. Besides, Eris acted before I could stop him, wrestling the man down with a palm clapped over his mouth. We made away with our victims as quickly as we could, and fed on them in a rocky outcrop halfway between their camp and our new cave dwelling.

I fed from the old woman, who did not fight me but seemed to think I was some merciful divinity. She smiled and called me abuella. The word came out of her pruned lips on a little puff of condensed moisture—the nights are very cold in the Gobi—and she held the back of my head as I suckled at her throat.

"Abuella," she sighed, a throaty laugh. "Ahhhh… abuella."

I drained her until the fragile membranes of her eyelids fell to her cheeks and did not stir again, and then I laid her gently aside.

I would find out later that abuella meant "medicine maker". It was her people's word for doctor.

Death, I suppose, is the universal cure.

The old man was not so eager to pass into the Ghost World. He fought against Zenzele until she was forced to break his neck.

He was very strong for a sick man.

She rose up after she had fed, and I watched the mortal blood thread its way through her body. First her veins swelled, pulsating like worms beneath her shriveled skin, and then her flesh plumped and took on their normal supple contours. She licked her lips, sighing sensuously, head craned back so that she could peer up at the heavens, and then she used her fingers to scoop the blood that had spilled down her chin and breasts and brought it to her mouth.

As she sucked her fingers with an ecstatic expression on her face, I felt the mortal blood in me shift its flow. My organ stiffened and rose up, throbbing. I was helpless to prevent it.

"I had forgotten how good human blood tastes," Zenzele whispered. She came to me as I stood there staring at her and threw her arms upon my shoulders. "Did the old woman taste good?" she breathed, gazing into my eyes. Her breath smelled of fresh blood. Her teeth were slick and pink.

Before I could reply, she put her lips on mine and sought the answer on my tongue. Our fangs scraped lightly together and she bit down on my lower lip, tasting the old woman's blood mixed with mine. I gasped in pain and pleasure, and didn't notice that she'd untied my loincloth until my rigid member pressed between her cool thighs, bare skin to bare skin.

"What are you doing?" I asked as she pushed me toward the ground.

"Quiet!" she hissed.

Eris and Bhorg watched, their eyes gleaming in the predawn light, as Zenzele pressed me onto my back and then mounted me.

"I had nearly forgotten how good your cock feels inside me, too," she said. "It has been too long."

I arched my back in ecstasy as Zenzele rode me, and found myself staring into the old woman's lifeless eyes. I jerked my gaze away, though shame did not deflate my ardor to any great degree. One becomes inured to death rather quickly as a vampire.

Bhorg and Eris finished their meal and joined us. I thought for a moment that I might be too jealous to allow it, but I felt no urge to turn them away.

Just like the old days, I thought, and a tingle of excitement wriggled in my belly.

My people had celebrated the summer and winter solstices with wild and drug-fueled orgies when I was a mortal man. It was something I'd always looked forward to when I was alive. That night, we celebrated as the River People celebrated. We celebrated our continued survival. We had outrun Khronos's hunters yet again, we had eluded him once more, and so we rejoiced. I even mated with Eris briefly-- at Zenzele's insistence.

She pressed me upon the hermaphrodite, urging me on, saying go on, do it, my love, put it inside him with an intense expression on her face. Eris opened his legs to me, his strange organ moist and welcoming. His clitoris, ensconced in folds of pale flesh, jutted out like a small and misshapen penis. I slid myself into the cold sleeve of his sex, and then Zenzele bit into my neck and Shared the experience with me.

I imagined I could feel her mind in mine, her eyes peering from the inside of my skull, and for some reason it enflamed me; it spurred me to greater passion. I performed for her-- her surrogate cock-- while Bhorg took Zenzele from behind, a privilege she had denied him until then.

And then we switched up, and Bhorg lay down upon Eris while I mounted Zenzele beside them.

Don't worry. I shan't bore you with all the grisly details. I know how squeamish some of you modern mortals can be about sex. Personally, I've never understood such squeamishness. I don't think I'll ever understand it, but believe me when I tell you, I've received enough scolding emails from outraged readers to know when to fast forward a scene. Suffice it to say, it was an invigorating interlude. Lovemaking can be a great balm to nerves worn raw by adversity, even for immortals, and when we were spent, we felt much more at ease, and much closer to one another. Call it a bonding experience.

We returned to our shelter, trudging across the dunes in the morning light, shading our eyes from the glaring sun as best we could. Goro and the Orda were already asleep. I could tell by the plumpness of their features—and their satisfied expressions—that they had fed.

Smelled like goat.

They had made a fire before retiring. It burned low now, coals popping intermittently. I lay down beside it, and Zenzele next to me. Vehnfear rose and trotted over to us. The wolf lapped our faces in greeting, then settled down at our heads. I shifted so that I could rest my head upon the animal's flank, and he gave me an amenable lick, as if to say, All right, my friend, but just this once. A moment later, Eris joined us.

He grinned at me sheepishly as he slipped next to Zenzele. I sighed, but it was good sigh. Zenzele put her cheek upon my chest, and Vehnfear harumphed, and then I closed my eyes.