Phoenix ch 09

‘And the Eagle flies, with the dove,’ the words sang through her awakening mind. There was a breeze as well, and a gentle swaying, rocking motion. There was also a marvelous sensation occurring between her legs that seemed to be the source of the gentle motion she was experiencing.

‘Love the one you’re with…’ Tanya smiled at the words. She remembered parking under the Franklin Street Drawbridge and climbing into the back of Rudy’s Trans Am on July Fourth.

‘God, when was that? 1970, ’71?’

They watched the pyrotechnic waterfall flow off the expressway bridge with the top down, wrapped in a blanket so the hundreds of people crowding the streets couldn’t see what the two of them were up to.

She yelled and screamed and listened to that song, riding Rudy’s big black cock while she watched the fireworks, and nobody knew she was creating her own fireworks underneath that blanket. She could feel the night wind caressing her body even now, as Rudy’s cock rammed her from behind, her body swaying back and forth…

Tanya opened her eyes, still half-dreaming, and screamed! She was hanging over a cliff! The echoes of her shriek bounced back at her, echoing from far, far below.

“Ah, you’re awake,” Tommy said from behind her. “I’m almost finished, so please wait just a moment. You have incredible muscle control, My Lady. Your awakening felt fantastic!”

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Tanya exclaimed, indignantly looking over her shoulder at the ranger fucking her from behind.

While she was at it, she also examined this incredible device – she could only think of it as a wooden ‘crane’ – that she was suspended from. She was literally ‘wrapped’ in a single rope that ran directly up from her naked body to a pulley, then down to where it was tied off in a slipknot next to that sorry-ass ranger who was fucking her. She could see the ranger’s cabin on the hill behind them.

She kicked at him. Tommy laughed and dodged her easily. “I can feel any movement inside you long before it reaches your extremities, my Lady. But please continue – it feels wonderful, and I don’t often have the opportunity to seduce a beauty like yourself.”

“Being drugged and tied up isn’t my idea of seduction, you sorry-ass bastard,” Tanya snarled. “When I get loose…”

Then she realized…

“Oh, God! This is what you used when you staked all those people…”

“Very observant!” Tommy congratulated her, still eagerly shoving his cock in and out of her very wet pussy. “However, your statement also indicates that you are here because of that well-publicized exhibition. You are not the vacationing camper you pretend to be.”

“So we both lied to each other,” Tanya grunted, trying to ignore the sensations the danger and his fucking were creating in her body. She wasn’t being very successful. “What else is new?”

“New?” Tommy asked, increasing his thrusting as he began to orgasm. “I’m not… not looking for new… Oh, Yes! I knew it!”

Tommy started pumping cum into Tanya’s excited pussy. The instant she felt his cock twitch, she started coming as well, biting her lip to keep from crying out in pleasure. She didn’t want this monster to know she liked what he was doing to her.

“Ohhh, yes!” Tommy exclaimed, shoving his pulsating cock into her pussy one final time. “I knew it! You enjoyed that! I could feel you move!”

“So what!” Tanya gasped. “It’s still rape! So fuck you anyway…”

Tommy smiled at her, realizing she was only angry because of her lack of control over her own body.

“Are you juicing me up so the stake will go in easier?” Tanya asked, sounding belligerent, completely unwilling to show him how terrified she was.

“You’re asking if I am about to stake you?” the Ranger asked, false surprise showing on his face. “Only with this modest stake which you have already joyfully experienced, my Lady.”

The look of disgust was quite obvious on Tanya’s face as she glared at him, not willing to admit he’d given her an orgasm.

“You couldn’t help it, my Lady,” he explained. “It’s the danger that excites you. The Old Race lives for death-defying adventure and excitement.”

“The ‘Old Race’?” Tanya asked, perplexed. “What do you mean?”

“Still you pretend?” Tommy sighed. “Very well, then, I shall explain. Two nights ago, your wild cries in the night drew me to you. I watched while you fed the bloodsuckers – making love to those creatures nearest your own kind by offering yourself to their thousands of greedy little beaks. Yet, when it was light, you showed no ill effects from your small sacrifice – your flesh still young and smooth as ever, although somewhat soiled.”

“You came into our camp?” Tanya asked, stunned by the knowledge that she’d been watched during that very private time with Frank.

“Indeed,” Tommy admitted. “But I left quickly when those two ruffians appeared. I watched you burn your own flesh for your pleasure and theirs, and I felt the joy with which you took that man’s life. I presume the only reason you didn’t feed at the time was that you were with your thrall. Feeding on a kill is a very private thing…”

“I…” Tanya started, then stopped. Things were starting to fit together in a very scary way.

“You were…” she started again. “You did all this to get my attention? You wanted me to come here?”

“Yes!” Tommy exclaimed, then laughed. “Very good! I knew that a great bloodletting would attract one like you. I was told there were none left, but I gambled that the dark ones were wrong.”

He sighed happily and grinned at her. “So, here you are. Perhaps there are no dark ones left. You are the first Arian one I have met.”

“Alright,” Tanya said, quieter now that her body wasn’t distracting her except for that itchy leaking down there. He sure came a lot. “If you’re not going to stake me, what are you going to do?”

“Well, my Lady,” Tommy replied. “I will conduct one more test to prove that you are what I believe you to be, then… Well, we’ll see.”

“What kind of test?” Tanya asked, not sure she could play this role. “I’ve already demonstrated that I can’t be hurt…”

“Yes,” Tommy replied, “and you love danger and sex, too. But the weak, pathetic humans occasionally display those traits as well; especially the ones who indulge in what they call ‘extreme sports’.”

Tanya was getting more worried. While Tommy was talking, he was also cranking the wooden crane that held her aloft out and away from the top of the cliff. She was now swaying much farther over the edge than she’d been a moment earlier.

“What is this ‘final test’?” she asked again, trying not to get too dizzy staring down into the abyss as her body swung back and forth.

“You shouldn’t even have to ask, my Lady,” Tommy replied. “The last test will determine whether or not you can fly.”

“What?” Tanya shrieked. “I can’t fly! Are you nuts? If you drop me down there I’ll be killed!”

Tommy frowned at her terrified display. Tanya shut up, realizing she’d blown it. He was going to drop her. She stared desperately at him, trying to think of what to say to save herself.

“Mister Ranger,” she fumbled, fighting down this new wave of terror. “Your Grace…” He looked at her more intently.

‘I’m on the right track! Think, dammit! He’s some kind of royalty!’

“Count…” she addressed him. Then she knew!

‘Oh My God! There are male vampires, too! It makes such total fucking sense! That monster is… Dracula!’

“Count Vlad,” she whispered softly. “Dracula… My Lord…”

“You have a final wish, my Lady?” Vladimir asked softly. He was slowly pulling on the pull tie that would release the rope binding her.

“Please, my Lord,” Tanya pleaded, trying to remember what Jake had said in the cabin that had made Frank so angry on that fateful day when she became immortal. “Even our kind can be crushed and killed. Dropping me will not prove anything one way or the other.

“Please, believe me when I say that only the dark ones could fly. I and none of my family have that power. If you drop me, I will die. I do not wish to die. If you offer me a choice, I would serve you, instead.”

“Eloquently spoken, my Lady,” the Count replied. “And I have seen how well you serve those you are loyal to. But why should I believe you?”

‘Keep him talking and for God’s sake don’t look at the figure by the house… Jesus Christ, Frank, you’re alive! Save me! Why would Dracula want me? What can it be?’

“Well, I…” Tanya stammered. “If you’re wrong and I’m right… and if you kill me, then… another one of us might not come to you.”

‘He blinked! I hit a nerve! What the hell is it?’

“Ah, then you admit there are others like you?” Vlad asked, suddenly more interested.

“I admit nothing!” Tanya exclaimed. “I’m pleading for my life! And for…”

‘That’s it! I know what he wants!’

“And for your eternity!” she exclaimed, suddenly sure of herself. “I can’t fly! But if you drop me, no more will come, except perhaps to kill you and revenge my death! You will eventually age and die. Think carefully before you pull that knot loose! This isn’t only about ‘me’ anymore!”

“Perhaps you are correct,” the Count said, looking thoughtful. “There are other way… uh!”

Dracula began to fall forward. At the same instant, Tanya heard a shot ring out from up the hill toward the house. Vlad began to fall, still tightly clenching the end of the rope.

The knot pulled free! “No!” Tanya shrieked.

Suddenly loose and carrying Tanya’s entire weight, the rope jerked out of Vlad’s numb fingers and sang through the pulley. Tanya’s body began to untwist like a yo-yo as the rope slipped around her body, burning her tender flesh as it swiftly unwound.

Desperately she grabbed at the rope that was flying away from her! Then she was swinging wildly with one hand gripping the rope as hard as she could. The side of the cliff came up and smacked against her swinging body and she lost a few more inches of rope and skin on her hand. All she could see was sparks and she didn’t know where she was.

‘Am I falling?’ she thought desperately. ‘Where’s the rope? I can’t feel it!’

Then Frank was there, pulling her up. She cried out in pain and relief as she felt him grab the torn, slippery flesh of her wrist and prayed that she wouldn’t slide out of his tenuous grip. She felt her breasts and belly being painfully scoured as she was pulled over the cliff edge and flat along the ground. Then she lay gasping and sobbing in relief and terror.

“Very clever…” a voice gasped from behind Frank. Vlad was crawling to his knees.

“He’s like us!” Tanya cried out, gasping for air to warn Frank. “He heals fast!”

Frank swung around quickly and slammed his fist into the ranger’s face, knocking him backward as he tried to stand.

“Don’t let him up!” Tanya screamed, scrambling up on her hands and knees. “Don’t give him an inch!”

Frank took her advice and kicked their host in the face. Vlad leaned sideways, easily deflected most of the blow and grabbed Frank’s foot, twisting it and pulling him down.

Tanya was on her feet, now, all five-foot six-inches of naked blond rage. The monster that had terrorized her was going after Frank! She leaped at him. At the last instant, she realized her error as Vlad threw himself sideways.

A shiny, slender flash was all she saw, then Bram Stoker’s cane sword was buried in her stomach and sticking out just above her rump. She twisted around, trying to avoid it even as it pierced her belly and pulled it out of Vlad’s hand, instead. As she rolled away on the ground, the sharp end jarred painfully on the ground behind her, then snapped off.

Tanya cried out at the jarring, white-hot pain of the narrow flat sword in her middle. She lay on the ground for a moment and watched Vlad and Frank stagger to their feet. She felt her body starting to go into shock and realized she had to pull the sword out or she wouldn’t be able to heal. In her rage and fear, it was a difficult and incredibly painful task that left her shaking and barely conscious.

Frank and Vlad fought ferociously for a moment while Tanya staggered back up on her feet mostly using the broken cane sword for a cane. Then she was back in the fight, hoping she wasn’t bleeding to death internally because she couldn’t wait for her wound to heal. From somewhere, Vlad had produced a wicked-looking fighting knife and Frank was getting cut up pretty bad.

Tanya leaped forward silently and slashed across Vlad’s back with the broken, but still sharp-edged sword.

“Ahhhh!” Vlad cried, then threw himself sideways. Tanya slashed at him again and missed. She threw herself at him even as he flipped his knife over, grabbed it by the tip and threw it, point-blank, right at her. It sank painfully into her shoulder, then she landed on him with the sword slashing deeply into his torso with all her weight behind it.

Gripping the sword tightly to make sure she didn’t lose it, she rolled off and away, giving Frank another chance to beat on him some more while she recovered. Frank didn’t waste any time. He landed on the ranger with both knees in his wounded, slashed-open stomach, making the ranger cry out in agony.

They rolled around on the ground for a moment, Frank having the upper hand, this time. Tanya finally got the knife out of her shoulder. Her body was shaking with shock to her system and her vision was tunneling, but she didn’t dare quit. They could both die easily if that monster got the upper hand for even a second.

Casting aside the broken sword in favor of the knife, Tanya staggered to her feet again, gasping and shaking, holding the bloody knife and waiting for an opportunity to rejoin the fight. Then Frank and Vlad were rolling toward her. When Vlad was on top, she leaped, driving the bloody blade deep into the back of the monster’s neck. Vlad stiffened, then collapsed, unconscious.

“Holy shit!” Frank gasped as he rolled the ranger off of him. “What does it take to kill this fucker?”

“It’s Dracula!” Tanya panted. “And he’s… not dead… yet!”

“Dracula?” Frank asked, crawling to his knees. “You mean the Vampire Dracula?”

“One and the same!” Tanya said, starting to catch her breath. “He’s real, and we have to kill him!”

“How the hell do you kill a vampire?” Frank asked, staring at Tanya’s bloodied, naked body. “Are you all right?”

“I’ll live,” Tanya gasped, trembling, “but if he wakes up, we’re both dead!”

Vlad began to stir. Tanya savagely jumped on him, snarling and crying out like a wild animal while slashing away with the knife, trying to do as much damage as possible. Despite the bloody cuts she was making in him, Vlad was beginning to fight back.

“Hamstring him!” Frank called out, fearful for his savage wife’s safety.

Dimly hearing him through her terror-driven blood lust, Tanya slashed beneath the monster’s arms and across the backs of both legs, cutting the nerves so he couldn’t get up. Then she slashed his throat and rolled off him.

“Won’t that kill him?” Frank asked, helping Tanya to her feet and watching blood gush from Dracula’s slashed throat.

“No,” Tanya gasped. “I don’t know what will kill him.”

They watched for a moment while the pulsing flow of blood slowed to a trickle.

“He’s healing!” Tanya said, her voice full of horror. “We have to kill him again.” She dropped down and slashed his throat again.

“We can’t just keep doing this,” Frank told her, beginning to despair of winning this surreal fight.

Dracula’s arm moved as his hand weakly tried to crawl toward his wounded throat. Tanya sobbed wildly and stabbed the knife down into the monster’s heart. “Die! Damn you!”

Amazingly, Vlad opened his eyes and stared at her. “Never!” he rasped through his ruined throat.

Hysterical now, Tanya stabbed up and down with the knife, wildly carving into Vlad’s unconscious body. Finally, Frank was able to pull her off. He held her in his arms while she shook uncontrollably, gasping and sobbing.

“It’s okay,” Frank soothed her. “He’s dead. He won’t hurt anyone anymore.”

“No!” Tanya cried out and pushed herself away from Frank’s embrace. “He’s not dead! He’ll never be dead!”

Frank grabbed her shoulders and shook her, hard. “Yes! He can be dead! We’ll burn him!”

Tanya stopped suddenly and stared wild-eyed at him. “Yes! Burn him! Burning killed Béla! It will kill him!”

They reached down for the body. Vlad was stirring, yet again. Terrified, Tanya screamed and dropped down on him to savagely slash his throat yet a third time!

“Come on!” Frank cried out. “Get him into the house!”

They each grabbed a leg and began madly hauling Vlad up the hill toward the house. Every time Tanya felt the monster twitch, or thought she did, she stopped and dropped down on him, screaming and stabbing at him repeatedly.

“Stay dead, damn you! Dead! Dead! Dead!”

Finally, they were at the house and dragged their bloody host through the door. Leaving the gory mess in the middle of the living room floor, Frank ran around to the liqueur cabinet. Grabbing a couple of bottles, he smashed them together. Tanya joined in and began smashing bottles around and all over the room.

“How do we light it?” Frank asked breathlessly. Then he saw the remaining Swiss rifle still hanging on the wall. Grabbing it, he shoved the muzzle down against the wine-soaked carpet and pulled the trigger. In just a few seconds, the entire room was ablaze with a cool, blue fire.

“Let’s get out of here!” Frank yelled. He and Tanya bolted through the door and staggered across the porch into the sandy yard. Once outside, Tanya helped Frank pull his burning clothes off, then they both stood naked in the yard and watched as hungry flames towered up to consume the old wooden house.

“Nobody could live through that,” Frank promised, holding Tanya’s trembling naked body protectively in his arms.

After awhile, Tanya looked up and him with tears in her eyes and asked, “Where the hell were you? I thought you were dead.”

Frank hugged her tightly, only now realizing what horror she’d been through.

“I woke up in the basement, hog-tied neat as you please. The last owner of the house was there. He was very accommodating. I used his teeth to cut my ropes loose. The prisoner we took yesterday was down there, too. He was never delivered to the Sheriff’s department.”

“But there was a helicopter,” Tanya replied, confused, now. “I heard it.”

“Yes, there was,” Frank told her. “It left two cases of bourbon at the side of the house.”

“It was delivering groceries?” Tanya asked, stunned by the revelation. They both laughed. It was a hollow sound they made.

“Yep!” Frank said, grinning wearily. “Home delivery – right to your front door!”

They backed away from the conflagration as the roof caught fire and watched for awhile longer.

“He’s not coming out,” Frank said finally. “He’s probably just ashes, now.”

“Our packs were in there,” Tanya mentioned, sounding disappointed. “We don’t have any clothes to wear.”

“I like you naked,” Frank said, hugging her sweaty, sticky body against his own.

Tanya moaned, deep in her throat, and rolled Frank back on the sand. She pressed against him and kissed him hard, her powerful vampiric sexual needs surfacing after the savage fight they’d waged against the undead. Frank’s body responded quickly, his cock rising as Tanya writhed against him with her kiss.

Climbing over and straddling him, Tanya sank down, guiding his cock up between her legs.

“I hope you don’t mind sloppy seconds,” she moaned. “That fucker raped me before we killed him!”

Frank didn’t answer and ignored the loose wetness with which she gifted him. Instead, he pulled her down against his chest so he could kiss her.

“He won’t do it again,” Frank promised her.

Tanya smiled and squeezed her pelvis in response to his words. The sudden leakage running down his balls and soaking his crotch was such a turn-on that Frank increased his pounding motion in and out of her. Holding onto her thighs and hips tightly, Frank began fucking his well-used wife with a ferocity that burned her flesh as fiercely as the scorching heat from the flaming house.

Tanya dug her fingers into Frank’s chest and began arching her back, wailing louder and louder with each breath as her orgasm began flooding through her body. Then she was convulsing in ecstasy, her cunt clamping down against Frank’s cock so that he couldn’t even move.

A quick release and another tight clamping motion and Frank was coming inside her, releasing spurt after spurt into her hot, convulsing pussy. Then Tanya collapsed down on top of him, completely drained.

They both lay for some time, breathless and numb, the fluids slowly leaking out of her between both their legs, the heat from the fiercely burning wooden house scorching their sated flesh.

Almost an hour later, three hikers showed up – college boys enjoying the last of the summer before classes started again.

“We saw the fire,” one said. “Hope no one was hurt.”

“No,” Frank replied, allowing Tanya to ‘modestly’ hide behind his bare body. “Our stove blew up. We got out safely, but…” he indicated his and Tanya’s unfortunate state of nudity.

“Oh, we have clothes,” one of the boys said helpfully. He immediately began digging into his pack, trying not to stare at the distressed homeowner’s naked, nice-looking and obviously embarrassed young wife. In another moment, there was a pair of pants and a shirt available for each of them.

Ted, one of the more adventurous boys, managed to roll a burning log out and away from the still fiercely burning cabin. On that log, they prepared a hot meal of canned soup, baked Spam and old bread, which they shared with Frank and Tanya.

“Wow,” one was saying in response to the exploding stove story Frank told them. “What a thing to have happen on your honeymoon.”

“Yeah, really!” Tanya agreed, perhaps too wholeheartedly. “But, we’re both alive.”

“Yeah,” another boy piped in. “That’s the important thing. It could have been worse.”

“How so?” Frank asked, suddenly realizing he’d set himself up for some lame college humor.

“You could’ve run into the Mad Staker…” They all laughed while Frank and Tanya stared at each other.

The next day, Tanya contacted Colonel Brady using a real ranger’s two-way radio. The army came in and took over the site. Over the next few days, they uncovered six bodies in the basement – all human. Two were never identified.

There was a two hundred thousand-dollar reward for finding the butcher who’d staked out all those hikers. After several months, it was awarded to the Tabors for their contribution toward ending the slaughter. That money, along with the now liquidated Belview Estates built them a new house in Bozeman and set them up solidly in business as Private Investigators.

And that was the end of Dracula.

(Yeah, right!)

~~~~~

Vlad Tepes opened his eyes, expecting to be stabbed and beaten senseless again by that insane Arian vampire and her mate. Instead he saw a flaming pylon crashing down right on top of him! He rolled desperately to the side, then gasped in agony as his body let him know that most of his skin was already burnt off.

Staggering upright, he stared around at the flaming conflagration surrounding him, stunned and amazed. Then, barely able to force his half-cooked body to respond, he desperately pulled back the burning carpet and threw open the trapdoor beneath.

Dropping, half-falling through it and into the basement, he found some relief from the fire and was able to regenerate somewhat while berating himself for attracting the attention of a vampire who had obviously already chosen a mate. They were maniacally territorial and he was certain that she wouldn’t have fought him so ferociously if he hadn’t attacked her mate. That was about as far as his reasoning got before the roof fell in and crashed down, dropping the entire, flaming house down on top of him, completely burying him in the soft earth beneath the rubble.

He lay, buried, unconscious and undiscovered for more than a week, quietly regenerating. It took him two more weeks to dig his way out from under the collapsed ruins while living on a rich diet of grubs, worms and a couple of rats.

After causing one more lone hiker to disappear, he used that person’s credit cards and transportation to flee to Mexico. From there, he made his way to South America, where he disappeared, perhaps forever, perhaps for only a while.

And that wasn’t the end of Dracula, either.

---