Damn it, I thought as I tossed the body into the trunk hard enough to rock the car. I couldn’t believe my loss of control. There I was, minding my own business while walking towards the entrance of the supermarket for some smokes and this old witch just parks right in front of me. I was five feet away when she’d opened her car door. As soon as the rich smell of her blood hit me, I’d lost it.Me! The vampire with a witch as a wife! I’d lost it like a pussy newbie and drained the bitch dry before she’d even begun a spell. How was I going to explain this to Anna? Fuck it! What was done was done… I reached in and tore the section of throat with the bite marks away.After closing the trunk and wiping away fingerprints, I was undecided what to do next. I walked behind the supermarket to disappear into the shadows as I considered my options. I couldn’t leave this chunk of flesh here to be discovered and I couldn’t walk around the city holding a bloody piece of meat in my hand. Fuck it, I repeated to myself. There was only one thing I could do. I ate the damned thing one small bite at a time.Vampires can eat solid food. It just doesn’t always agree with us and it gives us no nutrition. Also, it comes out the other end in the same undigested form it went in. I’d learned that the hard way and I always chew my food thoroughly if I’m somewhere and want to blend in with Humans.Jumping fences, I ran through the backyards of nearby houses. A decent distance away, I found a house with no one home and used a water hose to wash my hands and face clean. The rottweiler who’d wanted to protect his little piece of turf pissed himself and disappeared under the house at my first growl. This wasn’t the best clean-up after a kill I’d ever done, but it would have to do. I was full so I headed for Chuck’s house to let him enjoy his first Wild Witch. Burping, I decided the old bitch would have tasted better with Tabasco and some red pepper.**********Cynthia was at the crime scene to greet me. She’d caught this case and would be the lead investigator. There was no chit-chat as she met me at the crime scene tape.”Lieutenant, it’s a female. Ida Knowles. Age is 73 according to her driver’s license. Manager of the supermarket says the car’s been parked here at least a couple of days. He came out to check on it before having it towed. He’s Army. Afghanistan. He recognized the smell and called it in. Uniforms arrived and popped the trunk in case there might be someone alive. They called it in a few minutes later after running as far as they could before throwing up over there,” Cynthia pointed. Christ, the body had been in the trunk at least two days. In this heat… No wonder the uniforms tossed their lunch.Cynthia pointed to a security camera fifty yards away. “Security is straight out of the 1970s. VHS tapes for Christ’s sake. If the tech guys can pull anything useful beyond sex of the perp, I’ll eat my shoes. ID on Ida’s license has her address barely a block from here.”Cynthia drew nearer and lowered her voice. She’d been my rookie partner for five years, but she was never less than professional in front of others after I’d been bumped up to Lieutenant. “Henry, I wouldn’t have called you out here on a Sunday morning except, there’s some weird juju going on.”Cynthia’s family was from Haiti. She knew weird juju. I made a come-on gesture.”For one thing, there’s no blood! And I don’t mean just in the car. I mean there’s no blood in the body! Crime Scene Tech says it will have to be made official by the Medical Examiner, but he’d be surprised bursa escort if there’s even a pint of blood left in the body. Rob’s a good CS guy. I wouldn’t bet against him.”The second thing that’s got weirdness written all over it, is that the throat has been ripped away. Again, we’ll wait for the M.E. to make it official, but Rob says the flesh wasn’t cut away. It’s like someone took hold of the throat and ripped the flesh off. When the press gets onto the story, there’ll be all kinds of sensationalist reporting. I wanted to give you a heads-up before that.”At that moment Rob walked over. I agreed with Cynthia. Rob was a very good CSI guy. So good he knew he stank of death and stopped several feet away. “Lieutenant, I’ve got her driver’s license and keys. I thought you’d like a walk-through of her house while Cynthia closes down the scene.”I couldn’t help my small grin while I signed the evidence book taking possession of the keys and license. Rob’s eyes didn’t move from Cynthia. Cynthia was a great detective, observant as all hell and yet she was the only person in the department that didn’t know Rob was head-over-heels for her.Taking a uniform with me, I drove to the house of Ida Knowles. Screen door was shut but the front door was open. From inside I could hear someone moving around out of sight. I rapped on the door and a feminine voice called out, “Is that you, Grams? Where have you been…” The young lady stopped talking as she came into view and spotted the uniform police officer with me. “Grams… Oh, hell. Is she alright?”The worst part of my job is having to inform family that bad things happen. The young lady, Mackenzie Knowles… Red hair, 5’7″ or 8”, good looking enough to turn heads… cried, of course. “I live in my own apartment, but Grams and me, we try to eat together every Sunday. When I got here, her car was gone but the door was open. I thought she’d made a grocery run so I came in and started cooking.”I asked for and got permission to search anywhere and everywhere. The uniform took the outside while I searched the inside. No blood found anywhere. I tried not to give many details, but Ms. Knowles had a way of asking questions that drew out answers I really shouldn’t have said.Later, standing by my car, I asked the uniform what he thought. “Lieutenant, I might be a rookie, but if someone just told me that my grandmother had been killed and her throat ripped out? I would just lose it. But she was the complete opposite. The more she learned, the calmer she got.”I nodded. That had been my impression, too. I agreed with Cynthia. This case had some seriously weird juju. I made a note to have her check out Mackenzie Knowles thoroughly.**********Witch hearing isn’t on par with vamps and elves, but we do okay. I could hear every word the cops said by the car. They were wrong though. I wasn’t calm. I was murderously furious. A vampire had killed my Grams! Blood loss. Ripped out throat to hide the bite marks. Yeah, it had been a vamp attack.When the police drove away I closed up the house, locking every door. In the small utility basement, I stripped down to skin. Nothing was allowed in the ‘other’ basement that might contain metal other than gold, silver or platinum. No underwire bras allowed. I put on the house robe and slippers that I kept here. Reaching under a shelf, I tripped the latch that opened a small, concealed door in the wall. No one but Grams and me knew that at one time this basement had been a full basement.At the top of a flight of steps, altıparmak escort I did a quick cantrip to light the room’s candles. Nothing metal, not even copper wiring and electric light bulbs was allowed here. Even all the wooden furniture was held together with wooden pegs. Looking around, everything appeared to be as it should be. Bookshelves, workbench, utility shelves with a wild collection of spell ingredients. A twenty-foot diameter circle had been cut into the concrete of the floor. Inside that channel gleamed thick, poured gold. Grams’ Power Circle. It was perhaps the largest in North America. It was mine now.Grams had drummed it into my head repeatedly what to do if something was to happen to her. Descending the steps, I moved to stand in the middle of the Circle. My Power Circle was a much, much smaller ribbon of gold in a chiseled cut on the back of a wooden Ouija Board I kept in my clothes closet. Drawing on the Power stored in mine, with Power and Words I’d been forced to memorize, I took Grams’ Circle and made it mine. The Power I had to tame took me to my hands and knees. Jesus, Grams. I never knew you had THIS much Power at your fingertips! Now, I could be on the other side of the planet and still be able to draw Power from the Circle to spell with. Checking the defensive spells around the house, I found nothing amiss. Once my head cleared and I felt able to stand, I went to the bookshelves and began scanning the titles.Sometimes I drove Grams to despair that I’d ever make a decent witch. I never seemed to find a discipline that fit me. Plus, I’d never been a very good student. I was young. Barely out of diapers according to some coven members. I preferred to spend my days and night in more ‘erotic and physical’ endeavors. I had at least three or four centuries to study dusty, old books. I should have listened to Grams…Near the end, I found what I was looking for. Grams’ version of Vampires For Dummies… Everything Grams had ever learned about the fucking bloodsuckers. I took the book upstairs with me. From my car I retrieved my cigarettes and in the attic I found the half-empty bottle of bourbon I’d stashed up there when I was eighteen. Selecting one of the new coffee cups I wouldn’t miss to use as an ashtray, I lit up. I knew what was in Grams’ will. This house was mine now. Grams had never allowed me to smoke in the house but exhaling my first lungful, I began to make the house smell like home.With nicotine and alcohol to sustain me, I began my studies. I’d mourn Grams later. There was a vampire out there I was going to enjoy killing!**********I was floating. There was no up or down or sideways. All was darkness. Stillness. The only thing which roused me from my sleep was a soft voice occasionally telling me to drink. There would be pressure against my mouth and then I would be sucking, swallowing a sweet, thick liquid until I’d sucked all I could. The pressure against my lips would disappear and I’d be alone again.There was one time during my sleep when the liquid was sweeter, more satisfying. It seemed to energize me like nothing else as I tried to suck every last drop. The darkness around me was suddenly filled with pinpoints of light and I tried to reach the brightest, only to go back to sleep once the liquid ran out. I think I dreamed.**********Oh, fuck, I thought. What did I drink to give me such a hangover?Opening my eyes, I saw that I was on my bed. In my bedroom. But everything looked different. My head swam as objects went görükle escort in and out of focus. Closing my eyes helped but then I was assaulted with smells. There was something downstairs in my kitchen that was rotten. I couldn’t remember having bought anything that would stink so much I could smell it in my bedroom. One by one I identified different smells… Shampoo… Furniture polish… A brand of cologne I’d bought but never wore… Cigarette smoke? Who the hell has been smoking in my house? It would take ages to get the smell out of my drapes! And then, just as I felt I couldn’t feel any worse, I smelled… Female… Pussy…”Oh, this just gets better and better,” I mumbled. “Did I have sex and I was too drunk to remember it?”My stomach flip-flopped dangerously towards throwing up but the splitting headache I had tamed my stomach as I sat up. Opening my eyes helped but, “Why the hell am I lying on a shower curtain?” My bed didn’t answer. “What the heck is all this crap on me,” was my next question. My bed still remained silent. My skin felt slimy. As if I’d worked all day in the hot sun for a week without taking a shower.My front door opened before I could ask my unresponsive bed another question. I couldn’t remember anyone I’d given a key to my house to, except for my mom. But the person closing the door smelled like the female I may or may not have had sex with. After clearing my throat a couple of times, I managed to croak, “Hello?” Footsteps flew up my stairs and faster than I thought was possible, a beautiful young woman stood beside my bed.”It’s about damned time you woke up,” she said. “I’ve been feeding and cleaning you for a week! If I’d known how much work this would be, I would have just ripped your heart out and been done with the whole smelly business.”She didn’t seem to be fazed at the sight of a naked guy sitting on a shower curtain spread atop a bed. “Hello,” I managed to say in a more normal voice.She shook her head. “I forgot how stupid newbies are when they wake up. Here,” she said as she put her wrist to her mouth and bit down until blood welled up. “This is what you’ve been waiting for.”I was repulsed by this act of self-mutilation until the smell of her blood woke something in me. I grabbed her arm and pulled her wrist to my mouth. I began sucking great mouthfuls of blood from the wound and swallowing it. All the while, the woman stood trembling beside my bed and making sounds as if she was on the verge of orgasm. But it was the smell from between her legs which told me she was aroused.The flow of blood began to flow at a trickle. I bit harder into skin and muscle and the harder I bit the harder she trembled until she came and yelled as her orgasm took her. With a hard pull, she managed to rip her arm away and stumbled backwards to slide down the wall. Sitting, her muscles still spasmed in the aftershocks of her orgasm as she held her injured wrist and moaned, “Fucking HELL, Chuck! You give incredible wrist!”My mind was clearer now. My headache was completely gone as I stared in horror at what I’d done. “I drank your blood. I can’t believe I drank your blood.””Of course, you did,” she said as she levered herself to stand, still unsteady and leaning against the wall. “That’s what vampires do.””There’s no such thing as vampires.””Really,” she said and held out her wrist so I could see the bloody wound my bite had inflicted. “I only made two small puncture marks. I wonder who did the rest? Not that I’m complaining. Wow! I haven’t come so hard in ages.”I couldn’t resist and reached for the arm. She backed away and licked away the small patch of blood running down her hand. “Uhn-uhn… Your days of free lunches are over. I’ve done everything I was supposed to do to give you all the blood I could. You’re gonna have to hunt your next meal just like the rest of us vamps.”