Tales of Dylak-Leem - Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Beneath the Forest Part 2

After a brief time in torpor... Keo found it unnerving easy to rest in the solitairy coffin without a night spent in the larger shared sarcophagus back at Amelie's crypt... she was woken by the Countess, who picked her up, dusted her off, and took her across the hall to her room.

"Our guests are now tucked tightly in their beds," Amelie said cheerfully. "And that brings us to another stage of your education, little mouse."

"Are they likely to see morning?" Keo asked neutrally.

"Well. That delightful Miss Maire shall; she's to be the evening meal at dinner tomorrow. Alas, as I was given the honor of the main course yesterday, I shall have to content myself with a breast; but that pleasure shall fall to either you or Lucreze. Our hostess is older and more powerful, but you are a guest. It will be interesting to see whether her appetite overpowers her manners."

Keo swallowed. "And the other two?"

"The Baron shall be paying that Chevonne woman a visit tonight, in her room. I shouldn't expect we'll see any more of her." Amelie sniffed. "No class, and a touch of whorishness to her, but a certain brazen steel that has always appealed to Stepan. Lucreze is the same sort of creature." She shook her head. "As for Mr. Blackpool, the Baron has been kind enough to make a gift of him to you at my request, for the purpose of training. You will be attending him in his room tonight, as one does."

"I beg your pardon?" Keo asked, her voice rising slightly. "Enter his room and do what?"

"Why, feed on him, of course." The Countess looked slightly nonplussed. "My love, he is a young man of good family. He has found himself unexpectedly a guest in a dark castle with a mysterious host, in a desolate, haunted land. He has been given a room for the night in a dusty, octagonal room in the tower."

"Yes. Fine. And?" Keo replied, frowning.

"My dear! Of course a beautiful, seductive female vampire must emerge from the shadows to climb into his bed and feed upon his blood!" the Countess exclaimed impatiently. "It is Tradition. It is Expected!"

Keo stared. "Expected by Who!?"

Amelie sighed. "My love, sometimes you amaze me. Have you never read a single gothic romance?"

"Of course not. Ridiculous crap." Keo eyed her incredulously. "Are you saying, you want me to kill a man because it's... it's narratively appropriate for the genre? This isn't a penny dreadful! This is real life!"

"You aren't alive, little mouse," Amelie reminded her. "These sorts of traditions and practices are important, dear one. They give our existence structure, and they also serve as a common social bond between those of our kind. You will be expected to know how to do this sort of thing, and if you cannot, others will think less of you. That may not seem a great hardship to you now, but it is dangerous."

Keo sniffed. "Why would another vampire pose a danger to me? I'm already dead. It's not as if I have blood they can drink."

"There you are wrong. I suppose this is a good time to tell you about that, as well." Amelie sighed. "Do you remember how you came to rise from death?"

"Yes." It was hard to forget. "You... drained me, and as you did, I drank from your... from your wetness." The memory made her flush.

"Yes. And that is how you will make another one of our line, when the time comes. But, my dear, this process can also be done in reverse." Amelie leaned forwards. "If you drink the fruit of another vampire's passion... be it male seed or female nectar... then bite their tongue with their essence still on your lips and drink... you can drain them completely of unlife. Moreover, much of their accumulated power and prowess shall pass to you."

Keo's eyes widened. "It's that easy?"

"Hardly easy. They will not stand still to let you do so, after all, if they are still capable of resistance. It does not happen so often as one might think." Amelie pointed a warning finger at her. "But you should keep it in mind, as it is indeed a reason for them to prey upon you, my love. You are weak still but carry a potent bloodline from myself. When you are stronger, you might well be a prize."

"I... see," Keo replied. A nasty suspicion started to occur to her.

Amelie laughed, seeming to read her mind, and shook her head. "I would not do such a thing to you, my dearest, and even were I so heartless, I could not. One who creates cannot feed and gain from their progeny. I could destroy you, but it would profit me nothing. It is not to be pondered, for were it otherwise, our kind would have cannibalized and died out eons ago." She smiled with amusement. "You should know, however, that the reverse is not true, and the progeny are quite capable of drinking away their master's unlife, and taking that considerable power. Or you would be, were you strong enough to do so, which you decidedly are not."

Keo nodded, filing that extremely interesting piece of information away for later consideration. 

"But back to the subject at hand!" The Countess made a grand gesture, and pointed to the bed. "I have had these specially tailored for you."

Keo examined the clothing lying on the covers. It appeared to be lingerie. Skimpy, sexy lingerie in red and black lace, with stockings and garters and what could be called a brassiere if one was being generous. "You've got to be kidding!"

"Not at all, my love. Tradition. Now, dress for me."

Keo stared balefully at her, and Amelie stared back, reproving. For several seconds there was a contest of wills, electric.

Then, as always, Keo dropped her eyes, defeated. She knew her master was quite capable of forcing her, with agony or with necromantic puppet mastery. "I hate you," she snarled, then angrily began to put on the stockings.

It took her several minutes to put on the unfamiliar clothing. There were... a lot of straps. Finally though she was dressed, if you could call it dressed, and looked at herself in the mirror unhappily. "I look fucking ridiculous," she muttered.

The Countess eyed her with decidedly muted enthusiasm. "It is not so unbecoming, my love," she said encouragingly. "I admit that perhaps your figure, it is not ideal for it. But you can make up for that with carriage and deportment."

"Yeah, right," Keo said sourly. The lingerie she wore, while tailored, had clearly been designed for a woman who was much taller, had a much bigger bosom, and not as wide a set of hips in proportion to her chest. Unlike the riding costume, which had managed to turn all those attributes into positives, this costume simply called attention to those parts of her body in an unflattering light. The only part of her body highlighted in a positive sense was her round bottom, which happened to be the physical feature Keo hated the most, after her short height. "Could have just got me a jester's suit. I'd wear it better and with more decency."

"Well." Amelie didn't argue the point. "I have every confidence in you, my dear. A few pointers... upon entering the room, one is to glide. Like so." She demonstrated, an eerie smooth walk. "Halfway to the bed, it is customary to hiss, demonstrating desire and hunger. Upon reaching the bed, one climbs upon it with hands and knees. A second hiss may be employed at this point as you bring your face above the gentleman's, but is not required. At that point, tearing away his clothing should begin. From there, you may use your own muse... typically you will not be thinking clearly by that stage anyway."

"What if he's locked his door? Do I knock?"

"Kno- oh dear." Amelie sighed. "No, little mouse, you do not knock. Seductive maidens of the living dead do not knock, nor do they ring the bell, nor do they call, 'Yoo hoo, are you decent?'. You go in and you take what you desire. In this case, as is traditional in a fine classic setting like Castle Gravenstone, there is a secret passage. You will use that."

"Well, that's something at least," Keo muttered. It was a relief to hear she wouldn't have to traipse through the halls in slutty undergarments.

"Now, if there are no other questions, the door is here." Amelie pressed a hidden lever on a bookcase, causing it to swing open and reveal a dark passage. "Turn left, and take the fifth door on the right. Do not wander off."

"You're not coming, then?" That was a bit of a relief.

"It would not be appropriate. You must handle this yourself. I have every confidence in you, my dear one." Amelie smiled fondly. "Now go, and I shall expect a full accounting later."

With a sullen grunt, Keo slouched irritably into the secret passage and headed left.

---

It didn't take her long to cover the distance, but when Keo reached the correct door she hesitated. Her usual reaction to the prospect of intimacy aside, and her deep lack of enthusiasm over the frippery she was wearing, she really didn't like the idea of killing someone who she'd found merely inoffensive. His lack of taste in women aside, Mr. Blackpool had seemed like a decent sort, and she'd talked to him just long enough for him to feel like a person to her.

Still, she thought unhappily, what were her options, really? She could go back to Amelie and leave him alone, in which case she'd be punished and then either Amelie or Lucreze would kill him. She could drink from him but leave him alive, in which case she probably wouldn't get more than a scolding... but he would still likely never leave the castle alive to tell the tale. Or she could drain him dry as her master had requested, which obviously would be fatal for him, but she could try to make it as easy as possible and she would then be praised and gain favor instead of punishment.

When you looked at it that way, she told herself, the latter choice was easiest for everyone. It was a shitty situation to be in, but what else was new.

With a sigh, she pushed open the concealed door and stepped through.

As her master had told her, it was a octagonal room with rich but rather grotesque wallpaper and a massive four-poster bed. The secret door had apparently been built into a linen closet, and she had to push through various bits of male clothing to emerge from it. By the looks of it, Kevin Blackpool was asleep in the bed.

Keo supposed she had better do this correctly, as the Countess would undoubtably quiz her on it, and the black-eyed thief had found it difficult to lie to her master. So, glide. She frowned. She knew how to walk quietly of course, that had been a basic part of her former profession, but how on earth did you pull off that mincing sort of glide Amelie had demonstrated?

Let's see. One foot, other foot, one foot, other foot... Keo swayed a bit, feeling rather ridiculous. This was harder than it looked, particularly with legs as short as hers. The glide kept threatening to become a waddle. One foot, other foot, sexy vampire walk.. one foot, other foot...

Exactly which foot momentarily baffled her, one caught on the other, and with a muffled curse she went down in a sprawled heap on the floor.

With a start, Kevin Blackpool sat upright in bed, blinking sleep from his eyes. "Is someone there?"

Gritting her teeth, Keo levered herself back to a standing position and resumed gliding, this time staring fixedly at her feet.

"Lady Keo? Is that you? Uh... I think you have the wrong room?"

Okay, this was the midpoint to the bed. Now she was supposed to hiss. Keo hesitated, frowning slightly. She actually had hissed in the way she knew Amelie expected her to, but that was when she was caught up in the hunger, which she decidedly was not at the moment. Tentatively, she opened her mouth and made... a noise. It wasn't really a hiss, she immediately thought. More of a... gasp.

"Bless you," Mr. Blackpool reflexively said. "Uh... Lady Keo?"

That was all the gliding she needed, right? It had better be, because she was done with that crap. Quickly covering the distance to the bed, she started to climb onto it on hands and knees.

"Uh... oh my." Blackpool seemed to notice what she was wearing for the first time. "Oh. Uh, Lady Keo, please don't take this wrong, I'm very flattered, but I have a fiancee."

He sounded more embarrassed than aroused, which was exactly how she felt. Hastily, cheeks coloring, she crawled up along his sheet-covered body until her head was craning up to look at him. He was supposed to be lying down, she thought irritably, not sitting upright. What came next? Right, second hiss. Again she made a noise that somewhat resembled what she was aiming for.

"Do you have a cold? Should you be wearing, ah, so little in this chill? I really think this is ill-advised," Kevin Blackpool babbled frantically.

"Oh, shut up," Keo snarled. "I don't like this any more than you, so just sit back and cooperate."

"I beg your pardon?" Blackpool said, taken aback. "What is--" Keo tore away the sheet, revealing his nakedness. "Lady Keo! This isn't... this really isn't proper! I'm engaged, and we've barely met!"

"Right." She looked at his groin, scowling. He seemed clean at least, but he wasn't erect at all. Normally that would be just fine with her, but given her desire to get this over with, it was annoying. Also vaguely insulting. "Can you get it up?"

"I... um, no offense, my lady." He looked terribly embarrassed. "I'd rather not."

Keo sighed. She understood his sentiments exactly and normally would have approved. "I'm not a lady. Just call me Keo." Maybe she could manually get him erect, with her hand. Or did he even need to be hard for this? "Fuck," she swore. She actually had no idea how you went about feeding on a man, she suddenly realized. All her previous meals had been women. Did you bite them in the cock? Just above the cock while sucking them off? In the neck or shoulder or chest while riding their cock?

"Is something wrong? You seem rather less happy with this than your actions would suggest." Kevin Blackpool looked almost as confused as he did embarrassed and nervous.

"I'm trying to figure out how this actually works," she replied irritably. Inserting her tongue had always been a big part of feeding before. Should she put it down his throat? Up, dear gods, his ass? That idea make her face screw up in disgust.

"La- uh, Keo, if... look, if you don't know how a man and a woman, uh, make love, perhaps an unexpected midnight seduction isn't the best way to learn." Blackpool was starting to sound a little exasperated in addition to the rest. "Why don't you return to your room? You have your whole life ahead of you to--"

"I am not trying to have sex with you! Get over yourself!" Keo snapped.

Kevin Blackpool stared at her. "Then what the nine hells are you doing!?"

"I'm...!" Keo growled, aiming a murderous glare at his limp cock. "Okay, I am trying to have sex with you, sort of, but not for sex! I'm not that sort of woman! I'm a vampire, okay?"

"A... you're a what?" Blackpool sounded incredulous. "As in, undead, fangs, blood, opera capes, white ghostly nightgowns?"

"Yes, as in... wait, what? White ghostly nightgowns?" Keo glared at him. "What nightgowns?"

"Uh... you know, it's the usual thing in those terrible gothic romances. The hero goes to sleep and the three beautiful vampire women glide out of the shadows wearing pale white nightgowns--"

"Fucking bitch!" Keo screeched. "She couldn't even get that right! I could have been wearing a nightgown instead of this whore rig!?"

"It doesn't really flatter you, does it?" Blackpool agreed. "I wasn't going to say anything, but you do look a bit..."

"Like a squat, cheap slattern in a particularly gaudy brothel," Keo muttered. "Yes... I... know."

"Well, yes. Sorry." Kevin Blackpool looked embarrassed. "But look, just because your undergarment has embroidred red bats, doesn't make you a vampire. I'm sorry, miss, but you look less like a vampire than practically anyone I've met in the last few days. If you were to tell me Countess D'Bastian was one I would probably buy it, but..."

"She is. So is Lucreze. And the Baron's a Death Knight. The only living people in this castle are you three and Wilhelm, and he's a necromancer." Keo sighed. "Look, I'm really sorry about this. If you cooperate, it should be fairly painless."

"Are you actually a vampire?" Blackpool sounded deeply skeptical. "I'm sorry, but I have a hard time believing this."

"For fuck's sake," Keo muttered. "Look, you know how to feel a pulse, yeah?" He nodded, and she offered her wrist. "See if you can find mine."

He took her wrist, frowning, and held it for a time. His face grew gradually more uncertain and disturbed, and finally he let go. "May I, uh, listen to your chest?" Keo nodded, and he lowered his head to put one ear to her chest. He kept it there for a long span of second, then lifted it, face pale. "You.... you don't have a heartbeat."

"Yeah. Dead people don't." She shrugged.

"Good gods. Then..." His face paled further. "What exactly is it you intend with me?"

"I'm supposed to drink your blood until you die." Keo shrugged again. "Sorry."

"You can't do that! I mean... look, I don't want to die!" Blackpool licked his lips nervously. "Especially not, uh, not with an erection!" He paused. "Wait, why exactly do you feel the erection is necessary?"

"Because I've only fed on women before, and with women, you bite them..." Keo looked away, face reddening in embarrassment. "Look, it's fairly indecent, a lot more than I would have expected. Guess with a man it's the same? I don't know?"

"You want to kill me by biting my manhood and sucking my blood out through it?" Kevin Blackpool said in incredulous horror. "Dear gods!"

"I know! I know!" Keo shook her head. "Damnit! This whole thing is just stupid and vile!"

"Then why are you doing it? Can't you just return to your room and go to sleep? Or if you can't, I've got a pack of cards in my coat. We could play a few hands til morning."

"It's not that simple. I'm basically Countess D'Bastian's bitch. If I don't do as she wishes, I'll be punished. More than that, if I don't dispose of you, one of the other two will." Keo sighed. "You were dead the second you set foot in this place."

"Oh. I see." Blackpool frowned, clearly not liking what he was hearing. "What about my fiancee and Miss Maire?"

"They're not going to make it either."

"Can't you do anything about that?" Blackpool said, pleadingly. "If you have to... feed on me, all right, but can't you find a way to let the women go?"

"Fuck's sake, are you really going to put on that manly chivalry crap?" Keo snapped irritably. "'Save the ones with the twats first'. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense."

"Well, it's the proper way things are done," Kevin Blackpool replied, sounding stung. "Would you rather I told you the hell with them, save me?"

"It'd be brighter," Keo said laconically. She covered his limp shaft in a hesitant fashion with one hand. "I think this needs to be... damnit." She glanced at him. "You really can't get it up? The one time, the ONE TIME I want a man to be horny and you can't get it up?"

"I'm sorry, the prospect of being killed by having fangs bite me in the penis, has rather dampened my ardor!" Blackpool shot back angrily.

"We don't know that penis-biting is required!" Keo snarled. "Maybe it's just penetration and I bite your chest or neck! Look, can you get it up if... if I use my mouth? Not to bite, I mean."

"Uh... probably, but..." He swallowed. "Probably."

Keo wrapped her fingers around the flaccid organ. It was small and pink, cushioned by short, curly brown hair. She and lifted it to point up, and bent her head, opened her mouth, hesitated. Her mouth opened again, and she bent a little further. The cock twitched in her hand, starting to stir.

Her head shot up abruptly and she released his penis. Keo punched the bed. "Fuck this!" she swore, anger flooding her. "I won't fucking do it! Bitch can go diddle herself with a broken bottle!" She glared at Blackpool. "Get up and get your ass dressed. We need to get you out of here before dawn, as soon as possible, before you're missed. The fucking Baron may come after you, but the other two vampires can't; once the sun's up they ought to be confined to the unholy ground of the castle."

"Right. Thank you." Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, Blackpool hurriedly stood and began to dress. "Will you get in trouble for this?"

"Yes." Keo winced. "Don't worry about it. Get in trouble all the time. Not as if she hasn't done enough already."

"Can't you just run away?" He pulled on his trousers.

"Yeah, sure, if I want to disintegrate into a pile of smoking ash come dawn." Keo's voice was cranky. "Off unholy ground, I need to be back in my coffin before daylight or that's the end of me. Pretty sure there's ways around that, but I have no fucking clue how. All my knowledge comes from her, so she can control how much I know about what I can and can't do."

"That's terrible," he replied with a wince, buttoning his shirt. Then he hefted his haversack over one shoulder. "All right. Let's go get Miss Maire and Chevonne and get out of here."

"Wait, what?" Keo said flatly. "I said I'd get you out, not--"

"I'm not leaving without them," Kevin Blackpool replied. "That's not manly chivalry, just basic decency and loyalty."

Keo fumed and stewed. "You stubborn shithead. The Baron's visiting Chevonne tonight."

"All the more reason for us to get her out, then," Blackpool replied, gesturing with one hand. "Let's hurry."

Keo wavered, then sighed. She hated doing the right thing. It wasn't in her nature and it made her uncomfortable and anxious. "Fine. If it gets you moving." She gestured, "Into the closet secret passage."

They hurriedly bustled into the closet and through to the hidden corridor. Keo frowned. "Maire was three doors down from you, yes?"

"Yes. Chevonne's a floor below."

"Right. Normally I'd suggest we get Chevonne first, but Maire's right here and we'd have to retrace our steps to come back up here, so..." What Keo didn't mention was that from her brief exposure, she cared more about whether Maire lived or died than Chevonne, especially since Maire would potentially wind up dying under Keo's lips and fangs if not rescued.

"Very well." Blackpool didn't look entirely happy with that, but it clearly made too much sense for him to object.

They walked a short distance counting three secret doors, and pushed it open. The pair emerged from a closet to find Maire, naked in bed, writing in a book by candlelight.

Maire squawked and covered her breasts with the tome as they entered. "K-Kevin! Lady Keo! What the...?" She looked at Keo's attire, and her eyes widened. "Oh. Ohhh, I see. Uh... I'm a virgin. You're going to have to be gentle and tell me what to--"

Blackpool interrupted, "You have the wrong idea, Maire!" he said hurriedly, coloring. "We need to escape! We're in terrible danger!"

"Danger? Is it the Drocken? Did the goatmen follow us here?!" Forgetting her nakedness, Maire leapt to her feet and started grabbing for her clothing.

"Worse. Our host and the other guests are undead. I'm afraid you were intended to be a meal tomorrow, and Chevonne and I weren't supposed to see the morning."

"Undead? Countess D'Bastian? She seemed so nice!" Maire hesitated, skeptical. "And what about you Lady Keo?"

"Just Keo. Not a lady," Keo muttered. "I'm also a vampire."

"She is," Blackpool affirmed. "She doesn't have a pulse or a heartbeat. I checked."

Maire was confused, "So why are you helping us escape, instead of drinking our blood?"

"Because I don't want to be a gods-damn monster and have dinner conversations with people and then kill and eat them," Keo snapped. "I didn't ask for any of this, okay?"

"Okay! My apologies. This is just... this is sort of sudden," Maire said nervously, buttoning her blouse. "So we need to get out of the castle?"

"As far from it as you can before the others realize you're gone," Keo said. "As soon as you're out, run and don't stop running until you're over the border and into the Convent States. Find a patrol as fast as you can; I think even a Death Knight like Baron Zagolya is going to hesitate before fighting an entire troop of Nunnery Martial on their home turf."

"A Death Knight?!" Maire looked more and more frightened. "Oh gods."

"We'll be okay," Kevin Blackpool said, sounding far from sure. "We just need to stay calm and hurry."

"Right." Finishing dressing, the redheaded student shouldered her pack and gave Keo a nervous smile. "Lead on."

With a grunt, Keo led them back into the secret passage, hesitated, then continued down it.

It took some time in the dim passage, but eventually they were able to find a stairway down. Peeking into rooms along the hidden corridors let Keo get a feel for where in the tower they were, and from that she was able to slowly work their way to what she believed was the secret door into Chevonne's room.

Gesturing for a halt and putting a finger to her lips to indicate silence, Keo pressed an ear to the door. She could dimly hear noises, but she could not make out any details except that something was going on other than a person sleeping peacefully in bed. She grimaced and straightened. "Some noise in there. Can't tell what," she whispered. "We should write her off and keep moving."

"Out of the question," Blackpool whispered.

"We can't just leave her," Maire agreed. "Even if she is a bit of a bitch. Sorry Kevin."

Blackpool looked hurt.

Keo sighed in exasperation. "We can't fight a fucking Death Knight!" she hissed. "I'm not that strong and you two seem basically useless in a fight!"

"I can use a sword," Blackpool quietly protested. "I have training."

"You don't have a sword," Keo hissed in increasing fury. "Unless there's one hiding up your ass! Even if you did, you really think an ordinary sword is going to hurt him? And even if it could, do you seriously think that a few sessions with a second-rate blademaster is going to let you fight a guy who was the champion of a kingdom and fought in the front line of wars for decades?"

"But we don't know that it's him, do we?" Maire pointed out. "Chevonne could be rearranging the furniture. Or complaining to herself. I've seen her do that on our trek. She'd just sit to one side and rant about how this was various people's fault and she hoped horrible things happened to them."

Keo fumed. She desperately wanted to keep moving and get them out as fast as she could; they didn't have time for this. She also feared the Baron at a basic level, and knew that above all she needed to avoid a confrontation with him. Still, they clearly weren't going to see things her way. "Alright. Look. Going to crack open the door and peek in," she finally whispered reluctantly. "Give us a better idea what's happening. If the Baron's in there, we go. If he isn't, we'll grab her. Whatever happens, you both need to shut - the - fuck - up. I mean it. I don't care if she's being sliced limb from limb, do not make a single sound or we're all dead. Understand?"

"I understand," Maire said quietly.

Blackpool just nodded, unhappy.

With a nervous mutter, Keo turned to the door. Gingerly, she unlatched it and cracked it open, just enough for them to peer through. Her eyes widened.

Inside the candles were burning, lighting the room. Upon the four-poster bed lay the Baron, shorn of armor, clothing, and mask; he was revealed as nothing but a tellowish-grey, splotched skeleton, surrounded and sheathed in translucent, spectral flesh that could faintly be seen in the flickering light. Straddling his bony hips and riding a ghostly cock, was Chevonne. The tall woman's large breasts bounced with each upward thrust, and her long blonde hair cascaded down her bare back, swaying as she rode. Her face was stretched in a pleased leer, and she was moaning happily as she rested her hands on the transparent chest of her lover.

Blackpool started to shove forward, and Maire hastily clamped one hand over his mouth, and held him back with her other hand.

Keo frowned and watched, listening.

"Oh, gods!" Chevonne gasped with pleasure, and rolled her hips. "Keep doing that, Stepan!"

The Death Knight complied, skeletal hands shifting their grasp on her bare thighs, the bone not quite touching her flesh through the ectoplasmic meat on them. "You are more ardent than I am used to, with the living," he murmured. "Most women no longer find me desirable."

"I care nothing for pretty men," Chevonne panted, adjusting herself on him. "I'm attracted to power, nobility, wealth, domination. To a man who takes what he wants. And men who know how to fuck a woman properly. You may be a skeleton, but you give better sex than I've had in years."

"Odd, then, that you were engaged to Mister Blackpool," the Death Knight replied.

"Oh," the blonde said with contempt. "He had money and property; he was naive, and he was willing to merge our estates. He wouldn't have survived long past the wedding. Of course, he lost his estate after the goatmen came, so I was intending to drop him the second we reached civilization. But your... Uhhhhhhh!" Her head leaned back and her back arched, a spasm of sexual delight passing through her flushed body. "Your.. oh, yes... your offer of immortality is very intriguing. Recent events have made me reconsider everything."

"You would retain your youth and beauty," Baron Zagolya said. "Lucreze need simply bite you once. It's not painful at all, quite the opposite. Afterwards you would reside here, as part of my court."

"Mmmmm," Chevonne moaned. "And your wife would accept our liaison?"

"My wife has no say in such matters," the Baron said dismissively. "In truth, I have found her... lacking, as a woman. She doesn't have your vigor or deviancy. Soon, perhaps you could replace her."

"Yes," Chevonne breathed, leaning forward and pressing her breasts against his translucent chest. "And then, Stepan... you're a warrior. You're a dominator. Why are you wasting yourself just hunting and letting the castle molder?" She kissed the transparent flesh of his neck. "You've lived the history the living only write about, and know so much. You deserve to rule! Subtersylvania is waiting to be reclaimed."

"My lesser servitors do poorly outside the castle grounds," Baron Zagolya replied, moving his skeletal hands to cup her round buttocks as his bony hips thrust upwards. "It would make a campaign--"

"Forget your servitors," Chevonne said impatiently, breath coming faster. "You can rule the living! A few mercenaries to start, just enough to conquer nearby settlements. Then draft the populace. Build an army, a living army backed by the dead! You've gotten so caught up huddled in your keep, Stepan, that you've forgotten what you've always been... a warrior, a lord, an unstoppable general. You can be a king... forever!"

"Yes!" Baron Zagolya's hollow voice rose with a certain fierce longing. "You have vision, woman, and drive! This is what I needed!" His skeletal hips thrust up again.

"This and some eager pussy, mmm?" Breathing heavily, lifting her face to the bony skull, Chevonne kissed his transparent chin and then pushed against his chest, rising to shove her dripping snatch exuberantly against the ghostly penis filling it. "I want you inside me, forever. And I want to be Queen. Your undying, eternal Queen, ruling the masses underneath you."

"This can be arranged." The decayed skull seemed to grin, the magical flesh of his face twisting more ghastly a smile than normal.

Chevonne shuddered and gave a lewd cry of carnal joy as she orgasmed. "Yes!" she gasped, breasts quivering as her hips spasmed.

Then she collapsed forward, pushing her breasts against his ribcage again, her sweaty human female body clutching the spectral skeleton. Chevonne's hot mouth mashed hungrily onto Stepan's glimmering lips, and then she pushed her tongue into the mouth of the skeletal head. Her hips lewdly moved back and forth slightly, enjoying the ghostly cock still stuffed within.

Lifting her face from his, Chevonne licked her lips, "Oh, Stepan, you're so masterful. Please tell me we won't still have Kevin around tomorrow."

"Lady Keo is taking care of him, my future Queen," Baron Zagolya replied. "We'll feed Maire his corpse for breakfast."

"Oh... was that another human we had for dinner? I wondered why it tasted so different." Chevonne giggled. "How ironic. I got the impression Kevin was attracted to the squat little drab. A fitting end for one of the most boring men ever born."

Keo quietly shut the door and whispered, "Think we've seen enough," she said neutrally. "Let's go."

The other two followed, their minds boggled, faces pale and silent.

---

The trio descended two more sets of stairs before Keo called a halt. "Need a second to figure out where we are," she muttered. "Gotten all turned around in this maze."

"Of course," Blackpool said dully.

Maire squeezed his shoulder. "I'm sorry, Kevin," she said softly. "I know that must have been hard to hear."

"I feel extremely stupid," he replied. "I always thought I was a good judge of people."

"Love makes everyone stupid, I think," Maire answered. "You're certainly not the first." She paused, looking queasy. "Was the meal last night really--"

Keo finished the thought, "A plump peasant girl, yes," Keo replied. "She died on the same table the night before."

Maire was suddenly angry, "You could have told us!"

"Oh, yeah, that've gone well," Keo snapped back. "'Look out guys, the vampires are feeding you human flesh!' I'll just yell that out at the dinner table and the two other vampires, death knight, and necromancer will just ignore it and not decide to immediately slaughter you all. And of course nothing will happen to me afterwards." She sneered. "It wouldn't have done you any harm if you hadn't found out."

"I... I suppose." Maire didn't look happy.

Rising, Keo led them on, "I think it's this way now."

"So were you born a vampire, Lady Keo?" Maire said as they walked.

Keo sighed. "Just Keo, okay? Not a noble. Not even remotely a noble. And no. Until fairly recently I was a normal person."

"Oh." Maire considered this. "What exactly was it you did for a living?"

"Grave robber."

"Oh." Maire sounded taken aback and a little embarrassed.

"Also occasional cutpurse, mugger, burglar, and adventurer." Keo smiled bleakly. "Not remotely a noble."

"That sounds like a very exciting life," Blackpool said, sounding a mix between alarmed and impressed. "Like one reads about in the romances."

"Occasionally," Keo replied. She paused, then admitted, "I like to play the edge. Need the excitement. It isn't good for me, but." She shrugged, feeling like she'd given away more of herself than she should. "How I am."

"Well, I hope this is exciting enough," Kevin said with a shaky laugh. "Personally after the last few months I'm ready for a long stretch of boredom."

Maire added, "I wouldn't go that far, but I do like my adventures to be a little less horrible."

"Yeah, no shit... hold it," Keo said, pulling to a halt. "There's a chamber ahead with something in it."

"What sort of something?" Blackpool asked nervously.

"Dunno. I can feel it but it's not..." Keo frowned. "I dunno."

Cautiously they advanced to where the corridor broadened into a wide stone chamber. A design of some sort was etched on the floor, with a flickering purple light in the center.

"Damned wizard shit," Keo said. She scanned the room. "No way through without crossing the symbols. Gods knows what that'll do. I don't recognize any of this crap. Doesn't feel like Necromancy. Demon summoning, mebbe?"

Maire spoke up, "No. I know what it is. Someone tried to use Lightless magic here. They botched it."

The other two looked at her blankly.

Maire sighed. "Some of the underground empires used Lightless sorcery to great effect, calling upon beings of the Spaces Between and the Dark Eternal. It was difficult for many races, humans included, to learn without falling into madness, but many of the underground peoples took to it with ease. Or perhaps they were born from it; scholars dispute the point. It was weaker in the light of the sun, but still potent enough to--"

Keo snapped, "We don't need a full lecture. The fuck is this thing?"

"Basically someone tried to open a Dark Well here, boring a hole into the Spaces Between. A long time ago from the looks of it. They screwed up. They got the part containing the perimeter right, but not the part keeping things from coming through the hole without permission. So stepping over that boundary is going to be like dangling our feet in an ocean full of sharks." Maire frowned. "They're lucky nothing worse has happened."

"Can you dispel it?" Keo asked anxiously.

"No. I'm studying to be a sage, not a wizard."

Keo gave the redhead a blank look.

Maire sighed. "I've been taught a great deal of history and lore and theory, not how to actually channel energies and cast spells."

"So you're a wizard who can't do magic." Keo rolled her eyes. "About the most useless thing I've ever heard of."

Maire smiled sweetly, "Do you know how much coin a good sage can make in a year? And do you know how many wizards end their careers by blowing themselves up, or losing a spell duel, or being dragged shrieking into the hells by their own summoned demon?"

Keo considered that. "Okay. Point... Definite point." Her black eyes returned moodily to the floor design. "Doesn't help us here, though."

"It might." Maire pursed her lips. "I think I can fix the mistakes. Probably."

"Probably. What happens if probably turns out to be not?" Keo asked.

"Really bad things," Maire replied with an uneasy laugh.

Blackpool interjected, "Maybe we should go back and find another way around?"

Keo shook her head, "The castle is crawling with ghosts. I could probably slip past them by myself, but with you two? Not a chance." she frowned unhappily. "What exactly do you need to do, Maire?"

The student thought for a second. "Alter a few of the runes. I have some chalk in my bag." She frowned. "But things on the other side will probably sense what I'm trying to do and try to stop me. They can't cross the border physically, but they can play tricks with our minds. Keo may be less vulnerable than us living people, so I'm probably going to need you to serve as our reality check."

"Right." Keo shrugged. "Well, get on with it."

"Right." Nervously, Maire crouched down, squinting at the eldritch runes.

Keo waited impatiently as the readhead shifted about examining things, pert bottom jutting in a way that caused both Blackpool and Keo to carefully move their gaze elsewhere.

Finally Maire took a deep breath. "Okay. Here I go." Carefully, she held the chalk and began to etch lines inside the border of the circle.

There was an immediate reaction. The purple energy in the center flared, and then light in the chamber seemed to dim. Shapes appeared inside the circle, half-distinct, not fully there.

Blackpool gasped, and took a step back. "By the gods!"

"Steady," Keo said, hating her own advice. "Let her work."

The dim, half-real shapes pressed at the edge of the circle. They seemed unable to pass it, however, and rippled in what Keo took for agitation.

"I thought they couldn't pass the circle?!" Blackpool said, eyes wide with fear.

Keo frowned, "They can't. They haven't."

"Then what do you call that?" He pointed at nothing Keo could see. "Maire, look out!"

The student suddenly squealed. "Keo! I... I'm a bit busy here, this isn't the time for--" A startled gasp.

"What the hells?" Keo snapped. "I'm not doing--"

"It's got her!" Blackpool's eyes were wide. "Dear gods, what is it doing to her?!?"

Maire complained, "Keo, please leave my pants on. I'm trying to concentrate. Keooooo...." Maire's planted both hands on the ground and her eyes crossed. "Oh godsssss...."

"Damnit!" Keo dashed over, bent, and pinched Maire's ear, hard. As the flushed student yelped in pain, the vampire shouted, "I'm not doing anything! This shit is screwing with your mind trying to get you to mess up! Focus on the runes, damnit!"

"Oh! Ri--right!" Determined, Maire continued drawing.

"Maire? Keo? Let go of them, you abomination!" Blackpool rushed forwards flailing his arms at empty air.

Keo leapt to intercept and grab him before he could interrupt Maire's work. "Snap out of it, dolt!" Keo snarled, trying to wrestle him to the ground. He was stronger than he looked.

Blackpool shouted, "It's got me!"

Maire whimpered, "Focus... foooooocus..." she moaned, spreading her knees and wriggling her hindquarters. "Mmmm, Keo..." Maire concentrated and completed a line connected two runes.

"FUCK MAGIC!" Keo screamed. "FUCKING WIZARDS!"

Then, with a soundless roar, the shapes vanished and the purple light in the center dimmed to a small sphere the size of a marble.

Blackpool started to shout, "It's got--" then he abruptly stopped struggling and blinked. "Keo? Are you all right? It tore the lingerie off you and..."

"It did NOT." Still fuming, Keo let go of him. "The whatever-it-was got into your minds, just like she warned. Nothing ever left the circle. You both just started seeing shit."

"And f-feeling it." Still flushed and adjusting her blouse, Maire gingerly stood and gave Keo an odd look. "Well. That was... interesting."

"Spare me the details." Irritably, Keo glanced at the circle. "Is this safe to cross now?"

"Yes. Just... don't linger in it."

"Small danger of that," Blackpool said fervently.

Apprehensively, the three quickly dashed on their toes through the circle to the other side, then continued on.

---

For several minutes the trio negotiated the warren of secret passageways.

Finally Keo called a halt. "We're going to have to enter the open halls now," she said curtly. "Try to be quiet. Walk where I walk. And stay close."

"Should we hide in shadows?" Maire asked, excited.

"No. These are undead, it won't help." Keo gave her a faintly disgusted look. "Doubt either of you could hide in a shadow properly anyway."

"I could too!" Maire insisted stoutly.

Sighing, Keo opened the secret door. "Just stay close and stay quiet," she said resignedly.

Several times they were forced to duck into side rooms in order to escape spectral servants or guards coming across them. Keo was an expert at sneaking around places, and she managed to keep the other two from being seen. They crept through the dusty, decaying halls until finally they arrived at the grand foyer, where Keo cursed quietly and motioned them back.

"What's wrong?" Blackpool whispered.

"It's that bitch Lucreze. She's standing in the foyer admiring her tits in the big mirror or something," Keo muttered. "We need to get past her, but there's no way to sneak you two through that room without her seeing."

Maire whispered, "Isn't there another way out? Like a servant's entrance? Castles always have servant's entrances."

"Problem with servant's entrances is they're full of fucking servants," Keo said dourly. "We'd be spotted for sure. That's if we managed to find it, because I haven't been to the servant areas."

Blackpool asked worriedly, "So what do we do?"

"Wait for the bitch to leave," Keo said unhappily. "Not much else we can do."

Gloomily they crouched in hiding for several minutes until they heard the sound of footsteps entering the foyer from another door. Frowning, Keo listened carefully.

"Lady Lucreze." That was Wilhelm's dry voice. "Your lord husband wishes to see you in Miss Chevonne's room."

"What for?" The fallen nun's voice was suspicious.

"He's come to an agreement with her, and wishes you to bring her into undeath in the way of your kind." Wilhelm's tone had a lecherous quality to it. "She is a fine looking woman; you shouldn't find the task unpleasant."

"I'm going to have to share the castle with that bitch?" Lucreze sounded less than thrilled. "Her twat's blood can't possibly be sweet enough to make up for that. Stepan should have consulted me first."

"Your lord husband wishes you to humor him. Just as he has humored your infatuation with Countess D'Bastian's ward." Wilhelm's voice had turned ominous. "He had noticed."

"It is not an infatuation!" Lucreze's voice was shrill, defensive. "I simply wish to teach that gutter-bred... and perhaps take her bloodline's power for my own--"

"You wish she was a man, and you were her woman," Wilhelm said bluntly. "Baron Zagolya told me as much. Nor was he pleased."

A sullen silence.

Wilhelm gestured, "To her chamber now. Snuff out the blonde whore's life with one last living orgasm."

Lucreze said nothing, but the sharp clack-clack of her shoes on the flagstones told them she was stalking angrily off. Shortly afterwards they heard the softer tread of Wilhelm's leather slippers. The necromancer seemed to pause, as if sensing something, then continued on.

After he was gone, Keo muttered, "What a pervert. Typical clergy."

Maire whispered brightly, "Oh, I don't know, I can get where she's coming from." 

Keo and Blackpool looked at her.

The redhead grinned weakly. "Well, I mean, Keo did look pretty good in that black and silver outfit. Like a prince in one of those pornographic pamphlets with the drawings. I had a collection of ones inked by this Dylak-Leem artist, Justine Coursi, and one of the guys in it looked just like you. He was the lost heir to the throne who was raised in a crime syndicate, and he meets the heroine when he robs her estate and rapes her gently, and--"

"Rapes her gently?" Keo stared at the student. "Do you even know how sex works?"

"Yes! Mostly. Look, it's fantasy, okay?" Maire said defensively. "I know it's not really like that. It just makes it less... scary if you turn it into a fantasy."

Keo and Blackpool exchanged glances, and Maire was pleasantly gratified to see that they were of the exact same baffled, somewhat disapproving mind.

"Let's just get out while we still can," Keo muttered.

Hurriedly they scurried through the now deserted foyer and out the doors of the keep, into the courtyard. A pale moon shown down through the clouds as they crossed the decrepit inner bailey, wind whistling through the broken crenelations of the walls.

Maire pointed excitedly. "I can see the gate to the bailey! It's open! Come on!" The redheaded student broke into a run, with Keo and Blackpool following her with somewhat less energy.

They made it through the bailey gate and halfway through the winding path down through the outer works when an eerie howl split the night behind them.

"The damn hounds!" Keo cursed. "Run!"

Run they did.

The baying behind them grew louder and closer; the hunt had clearly been raised and had their scent. They were nearly to the gate of the outer bailey when the ghost mastiffs came into sight, their eyes glowing a dull hellish red, shaggy bodies fading in and out of sight.

"Both of you up that tree! Hurry!" Keo snapped.

Terrified, Blackpool and Maire scrambled up the trunk of an ancient willow growing from an outcropping.

Turning to face the dogs, Keo drew on her power, burning some blood. "Back!" she commanded. "Obey!"

The spectral mastiffs ground to a halt, whining.

They were hard to command, Keo discovered; harder than the random ghouls roaming Ghasthauver outside her crypt. Gritting her teeth, she tried to focus her will.

Then Wilhelm appeared, striding out of the fog alongside the ghostly huntmaster. He took a good look at the scene, then planted his death's head staff in the desecrated ground. Siblant words of necromancy flowed from his lips.

Keo snarled and dashed at him, only to be kept at bay by the hounds. Wilhelm's chant grew louder, and then he pointed at her. Her muscles moved without her consent, and slowly unseen powers forced her to her knees.

Wilhelm hissed, "Obey. I lock you from the living blood, by the Sign of Ket!" The necromancer struck the ground with his staff again.

A wave of agony coursed through Keo. Her hands clawed at the earth as the necromancer approached through the ring of hounds. Frantically she tried to burn her blood supply to break free, but something prevented her from doing so.

"Do not struggle. Through the skill of my art, you are mine to command," Wilhelm said calmly. "My Lord Baron will reward me well for halting this outrage against his hospitality." His thin face grinned. "But I believe I deserve something for my trouble before we go back inside. Raise your head."

Angrily, unwillingly, Keo did. She glared, "You're a dead man."

"Eventually, yes. My profession has prepared me for that. Open your mouth. Keep it open."

She tried to resist the compulsion. It was no use.

Smiling, Wilhelm opened his robes and exposed a smallish, erect penis jutting from a bramble of grey and black hair. "Suckle. Do not bite."

She stared at it balefully, fury radiating from her.

Wilhelm placed a hand on top of her head. "Obey!"

With a groan of resistance, Keo leaned forward. She couched his length on her tongue and then took it into her mouth before closing her lips. As she began sucking his organ, it slowly grew to it's full length, still smaller than others she had seen.

They stood together there for several minutes, her head bobbing as she slobbered and sucked, his hands on her ragged black hair as he sighed in pleasure. Keo's cheeks were flushed with rage and humiliation as she serviced him like one of the street whores she had always despised, the taste of his flesh foul on her caressing tongue.

Bad enough being forced to do this, but what really enraged her was having to do it in front of Blackpool and Maire. That hurt in a way she wasn't used to.

Wilhelm grinned, "Very good..."

She heard her two companions screams as ghostly guards dragged the other two down from the tree. Her efforts to stand and do something were futile, and she continued to kneel and pleasure the necromancer as Blackpool and Maire were dragged past her.

Maire screamed, "Keo! Snap out of it! Keo!"

Wilhelm grunted, "Now, swallow."

A salty cream erupted at the back of her mouth, and Keo gagged his cum down. Eating and drinking in the usual way wasn't something she did any more, and she found it difficult in more than one way.

When he had finished emptying himself, he slid his shrinking manhood from between her semen-frothed lips and closed his robes. "Nicely done," he said snidely. "I believe I can guess your previous occupation. You might have made a pretty penny at it, had you been more attractive."

The necromancer turned to the ghostly guards. "Take them to my Lord Baron's chamber. Bind them."

Faces pale, the three were led back up the path to the castle.

---

Keo's hands were bound behind her. Not by rope or chain, but by shackles made of a cold black metal inscribed with the runes of the dead. She knew in a vague way of such things, had learned of them in her graverobbing days, but these were of a skill and power far beyond her ken. They bound her hands, and they also bound her ability to call upon her vampiric powers, rendering her little more than a short, seething woman. That fact had made the wait in the Baron's sumptuous, decaying rooms with Wilhelm and her two companions deeply stressful.

Maire and Blackpool also had their hands tied behind them, but the mortals merely required rope bindings. All three were seated in dusty, ornate wooden chairs and watched over by three ghostly guards and the necromancer.

The door opened, and would have been a relief except for what stepped through it: the skeleton-clad-in-ghostflesh that was Baron Stepan Zagolya, naked save for a pair of breeches, eyesockets blazing with an angry red light. Fury rolled off him in waves.

Maire whimpered, eyes wide.

Blackpool gave a gasp of fright and shrank back in his seat.

Keo just sat with sullen defiance, waiting.

The Baron stood straight, "I invite you into my home, show you every kindness, and you repay me by setting free my prey to rouse the world against me?" He roared at Keo. "Treacherous cur!"

"You're one to talk," Keo snarled back. "Your lovely dinner story aside, weren't these two also supposed to be your guests?"

This only seemed to make the Baron angrier. "The living have only the rights they are given by our whim. And you... you and your mistress are no longer my guests, having broken your obligations to your host."

"I feel so bad about that," Keo sneered sarcastically. "And you might want to think hard about getting on the Countess's bad side. No future in that."

"We shall see," the Baron said ominously. He glanced at Wilhelm. "You have served me well this night, necromancer. I commend your vigilance."

The gaunt mage bowed. "Thank you, my Lord Baron. If I may be so presumptuous as to make a request?"

The death knight made a bored motion for him to speak.

Wilhelm continued, "It would seem since we no longer have guests, a meal is no longer required for dinner tomorrow. May I have the redheaded wench? She would prove useful for the project you've tasked me with."

"Of course. She's too timid for my tastes. Do as you will."

"My thanks." The necromancer motioned, and two of the spectral guards advanced. Grabbing the student by the shoulders in a cold, translucent, but horribly strong grip, they pulled her out of her seat and towards the door.

"No! Let go! Let go of me!" Maire shrieked. "Help! Somebody help me!"

Kicking and screaming, the spectral guards dragged her out of the room. With a anticipatory smile on his narrow face, Wilhelm followed them out.

"Well, that's one distraction out of the way," the Baron said with relief.

Blackpool was struggling in his chair, trying to rise but was pushed down by the remaining spectral guard gripping his shoulders. The Baron's burning gaze locked with his, and he shrank back, going still.

The door opened, and Lucreze entered the room. The Baron's wife looked unusually pink and sated in her revealing white gown. "It is done," the fallen nun smiled. "The blonde wench returned much faster than I expected. Usually they remain dead at least six hours."

"Good," the Baron said with satisfaction. "Did she go to her death smoothly and without fuss?"

"She nearly squeezed my tongue in half with her cunt," Lucreze muttered. "She clamped her thighs round my head so hard I still have a hint of a headache. I've never had anyone depart the living world with such enthusiasm. She was a bit... less pleased upon waking, when the hunger hit her. I bade her wait, til you brought such game to her as you saw fit."

"Good. She will wait on our pleasure; that is the first lesson she must learn before she becomes useful." The Baron turned his attention back to Keo. "I was just about to sample the charms of our former guest. No doubt you'll wish to watch."

"Go to the hells, you bony son of a--" Keo's voice was cut off by the sheer force of the Baron's will; she choked, the words dying in her throat as his eyes blazed.

"This ought to be interesting," Lucreze murmured with a sultry smile. "I think Mister Blackpool will want to watch too. May I stand him up and attend him?"

"Of course," Baron Zagolya said, unbuckling his breeches.

"You're monsters," Blackpool whispered. "You--" His words ceased abruptly as Lucreze took him gently by the throat with one hand and pulled him to his feet. Then she steered him across the room to stand with her.

The Baron was nude now; a yellowish-grey, decaying skeleton surrounded by a shell of barely-visible spectral flesh. He faced Keo, and one bony hand reached to her chest and unbottoned the black brassiere embroidered with red bats. He discarded the lace undergarment and then reached down to her crotch and tugged at her flimsy lace panties. His red eyes glowed and the lace became brittle as if aged, and he violently ripped away the crumbling panties.

That left the black-haired thief naked, save for the garter belt attached with straps to her stockings, glaring angrily up at him.

With a low chuckle, the Baron reached out again and seized her by the neck with one hand. As she struggled, he easily pulled her to her feet and held her standing. He twisted her around to face the chair and quickly transferred his grip from her neck to armpits and lifted her into the air. He carried Keo as he walked to the bed and turned around to sit down on the edge. As he did so, he lowered Keo's generous ass onto his cold lap, holding her legs closed with his skeletal knees.

Keo could see Blackpool staring helplessly at her, Lucreze's arm around his waist. The fallen nun was eying her with unconcealed arousal. Keo flushed with embarrassment and anger, and opened her mouth to tell them to look somewhere else. Before she could get a word out, the Baron leaned her forward in his lap, and Keo felt a cool stiffness between her buttocks and then a slick bulbous head nestled against her anus. She yowled like a banshee as his spectral cock slowly pierced, stretched, and impaled her rear entrance with its cold undead length.

"NNNAGGH!" she shrieked. "YOU FUCKING BONEHEAP!" Her hands struggled futilely in the black metal cuffs, bound behind her.

"I do prefer women with spirit," The Baron commented. His skeletal hands moved to clasp Keo's small breasts, and he started to thrust up into her broad ass.

"NNNNNGH! FUCK... NGGGH! YOU!" Keo sobbed. She had been taken up the ass before, once by Lise possessing a man, and once during her disturbing tryst with Lady Anna. She didn't like it. It was dirty, it hurt, and while it aroused her body, it didn't provide much actual pleasure most of the time.

Blackpool tried to turn his head away. Lucreze grabbed him under the chin with one hand and forced his gaze back, her own eyes drinking in the sight. Her hand around his waist snaked into his trousers.

The Baron began to vigorously bounce Keo on his lap, sinking his transparent penis to the root in her round bottom over and over again. With his attention focused on punishing Keo and sheathing his ghostly manhood, the rest of his morphogenic field weakened, and Keo found herself sinking through the spectral flesh and into direct contact with the hard, splotched bones of his legs and pelvis. The hands on her tiny breasts also faded and became bone as well, the claws of the carnal skeleton clawing at her small, sensitive mounds, tweaking at the nubs of her nipples.

Keo was fairly flat compared to many women, but her breasts had always been extremely sensitive, and she gasped as the fingers of rotting bone pinched and teased her hardening nipples. "Stop... stop that..." she gasped, then stifled a cry.

"I think not," the Baron commented. "Yes, I think you're best enjoyed from this end. Although I have to wonder about the flat metallic object my length keeps poking inside of you."

For the hundredth time Keo cursed Flann Nightsteel and the silver coin the dwarf had shoved up her ass. If Keo had been a normal woman, the coin would have passed itself in a day or two. But as a vampire, she didn't eat solid food and thus she hadn't gone to the jakes after passing her last meals as a living person. "Gods DAMN it!" She gasped and shuddered, bucking on the skeletal lap, asshole straining to handle the cool unearthly shaft filling it.

The Baron leaned back slightly, pulled her against him. The hard sternum of his rib cage pressed against her bare back, another awful reminder of the carnal nature of the skeletal corpse ravishing her.

Lucreze gazed lustily upon Keo's ravishment at the bony hands of her skeletal husband, and cooed sweetly, "I think you've impressed Mister Blackpool, Lady Keo. He's grown aroused." Her hand stroked him inside his trousers.

Blackpool said nothing, although his face was conflicted and unhappy.

Lucreze continued, "See for yourself," and she deftly unbuttoned his trousers. As Blackpool flushed, Keo saw to her discomfort and annoyance that he was indeed hard, his good-sized erection jutting stiffly from his sandy pubic hair. Clearly he did have a talent for getting it up, with the right motivation. Lucreze stroked the organ with one hand. "He likes what he's seeing," the fallen nun whispered.

Keo rasped, "Let go of NGGGGN him, bitch!" gasping as her big ass slammed against the hard bony pelvis again and again.

"Why, maybe she returns your feelings, Mister Blackpool," Lucreze said with a laugh. "Let's find out." Giggling, she placed her free hand on his forehead.

Blackpool jerked, and Keo felt Lucreze's energetic pull. She knew what the fallen nun was doing; mental domination. It was a power Keo possessed herself and had practiced, though it was hard for her to use on anyone who wasn't fairly stupid or drunk. Lucreze was obviously far more skilled, however, or just stronger, because after only a moment of struggle Balckpool's eyes glazed over and he relaxed, mesmerized.

Lucreze released Blackpool's erection, and it hung in the air, pointing at Keo. The Baron's wife untied Backpool's hands, leaving his arms to hang limply at his sides. Then she slid the straps of her white gown off her shoulders, baring her large pale breasts. She pressed them against Blackpool's back as she wrapped one arm around his waist again and curled her fingers around his hot, living organ. "Stepan, do show us the lady's treasure."

With a hollow chuckle, the skeletal Baron removed his hands from Keo's breasts and moved them down to pull open her legs, spreading her thighs as she rocked back and forth on his unseen rod like an impaled butterfly. Keo uttered a ragged, gasping curse as the black forest of her pubic fur was exposed, a wide carpet that had never been cut or trimmed. Poking out from it were the puffed lips of her womanhood, ever so faintly dewed. The laced garter and strapped stockings framed her furry crotch and exposed recturm that was wide and aching from the spectral shaft. The fleshy lips of her womanhood gaped slightly with every thrust of the ghostly penetration.

"Very rugged and wild down there," Lucreze murmured in appreciation. Then she placed both hands on the side of Kevin's head and concentrated.

Blackpool's dull eyes stared at Keo, growing sharper, more piercing. Then he stepped forward, advancing with easy strides, Lucreze staying pressed against him behind. Halting between Keo's legs held open by bony hands, Blackpool took hold of his organ with one hand and moved the tip to rest at the mouth of Keo's cuntal gates as she was pinned on the Baron's lap.

"Kevin! Wake up! No! Damnit!" Keo shrieked. "Snap out of it! Kevin!"

"Keooooo," Blackpool and Lucreze breathed in unison. Then, forcefully, Blackpool's hot penis pushed into her already damp vagina.

Keo screamed and kicked as the mindslaved Castaharan began to vigorously and enthusiastically fuck her tight pussy. She was now taking cocks from two directions, forwards and behind, and the opposing thrusts sent her undulating back and forth. Blackpool's hands reached up to stroke her chest, and she groaned at the touch of his warm fingers on her stiff nipples, the cold nubs standing out like iron studs.

Lucreze leaned into Kevin's back, her own mouth open with slack pleasure, and Keo could tell she was both controlling and experiencing much of what Blackpool was doing. Their eyes met, and Keo felt her cunt get even wetter, an uncharacteristic surge of arousal filling her that wasn't just purely mechanical. I'd like to repay her for this in kind, she thought without meaning to.

The decaying skull of the Baron, eyes burning a hellish red, leaned over Keo's shoulder and nipped at her neck with rotting teeth, a ghoulish parody of tender kisses. His skeletal hands held the undersides of her pale thighs, keeping them spread for Blackpool to enjoy. As she was taken in two ways with increasing willed force, Keo's back arched. Her nipples were radiating pleasure down her body, her cunt was clenching with exertion, and as Blackpool's warm fingers caressed her quivering small breasts Keo snapped, the fury and physical arousal finally making her lose control.

Hissing in hungry passion, Keo lunged forwards, fangs seeking Blackpool's body, only to be quickly restrained by the Baron's bony hands at her shoulders pulling her back against his ribcage. Snarling, spitting, and moaning, she struggled against the bony grip, face twisted in an animalistic desire to feed on her lover.

Lucreze now smiled at Keo, and then sank her teeth into Blackpool's shoulder and began to drink. The sight seemed to drive Keo mad, her small body heaving and contorting as she struggled, grinding her big ass back against the Baron's ghost cock until her anus was a circle of pain. She climaxed then, riding a feral, foaming orgasm as Blackpool's penis stroked the inside of her spasming pussy, then a second orgasm cleanched the Baron's spectral length within the depths of her ass. The third orgasm was mostly from hungry motion; the fourth was purely from the sensation of Blackpool's cock and his fingers pinching her nipples.

The Baron grunted with orgasm himself at that point, and cold, gooey ectoplasm flooding Keo's inflamed anus. The shock of the cold slimy stuff and her submission to the foul necromantic orgy, triggered orgasm number five, the most intense yet. As she howled, her pussy squeezed with incredible force, causing Blackpool's stiff shaft to burst, shooting a hot gushing stream of living semen into her to match the cold cum-slime undead deposit. Keo's body shook and then slackened.

Lifting her bloody mouth from Blackpool's shoulder, Lucreze gently pulled him backwards and Blackpool's softening penis slid out of Keo's gaping pussy with a dripping strand of his seed. Her frothy nectar glistened on the fleshy lips and curly black pubic hairs around her pussy as the hole drooled hot living semen onto the spectral cock still deep in her ass. Keo hissed in protest at the vacancy, fanged mouth snapping. Lucreze directed Blackpool's limp body to sit back in his chair.

At that point the door opened, and Chevonne staggered in. The blonde woman's skin was a blueish hue with purple veins. She was nude, disheveled, and had a wild look in her eyes. "What is this?!" she screeched. "You're supposed to fuck ME, Stepan! Why are you cavorting with this whore?! I demand--"

With an enraged noise, the Baron leapt to his feet, spilling Keo off his lap and ectoplasm-oozing cock and onto the floor in a heap. He made a gesture, and Chevonne went flying backwards into a wall, then fell limply to the ground. "You demand nothing from me," the Death Knight said. "I value your spirit, woman, but you will learn your place. As will all." He glanced at his wife. "You did not finish him?"

"I just drank his blonde fiancee dry," Lucreze said lazily. "I wasn't very hungry. Just aroused."

"Mmm," the Baron said. "We have both had our fun. Now I must move quickly. Her master is a formidable one who I would hesitate to move against were she prepared. But she is not, and I have resources and ways of subduing her she knows nothing of, particularly as she does not expect trouble. I will render her helpless, then use the methods Wilhelm has devised, to drain away her power and take it for my own. This will take time, a long time. You must see to it that we are not disturbed."

Lucreze nodded, "Of course, my lord."

"Good. I will go now to capture her." He glanced at the pale, shaking Chevonne on the floor. "Take dear Chevonne back to her room. Enact the Punishment of Hounds upon her. That taught you your manners when you first came; it should prove effective on her as well."

Lucreze smiled broadly. "With pleasure. And these two?"

Baron Zagolya donned his breeches and started to walk out the door. "After you have finished with Chevonne, return here and dispose of them as you see fit. Just so long as they trouble us no more." He strode out into the hall, then was gone.

Smiling, the fallen nun crouched and pulled Keo up, seating her back on the bed. "Have we our wits about us again?"

"Yes," Keo rasped. "Bitch."

"Don't be like that," Lucreze said sweetly. "I do wish it could have been different."

"Do you really?" Keo asked bitterly, her ass and cunt still oozing cum.

In response, Lucreze just locked eyes with her, and again understanding and kinship passed between them. Then Lucreze bent her bloody mouth down to Keo's. The fallen nun pressed her large bare breasts against the thief's chest and hugged her tightly. They kissed, hungrily and intensely, for almost twenty seconds, tongues twining and tasting each other. Then Lucreze raised her face away, looking a bit shaken. "I wish it could have been different. I wish you were my..." She turned away, licking her lips. "But it's not. We are what we are, my dear. And soon you won't be anything at all except a part of me."

Keo said nothing. She watched Lucreze stand and pull the straps of her gown back up to her shoulders, the hard nipples on her breasts tenting the tight white silk.

Turning, Lucreze hauled Chevonne up and dragged the blonde woman from the room, closing and locking the door after her.

The room was silent for a long span of seconds. Blackpool was slumped into a chair, holding his head, trousers still unbuttoned. Keo collapsed on the bed and forcibly brought herself under control, banishing rage and lust and hunger as much as she could.

Finally she raised her head. "Do you have your wits back?" she rasped.

"Y-yes," Blackpool said, voice subdued. "I'm sorry. I didn't... I should have been able to fight harder, keep her out of my mind somehow."

"Not your fault," Keo said grudgingly. "Magic shit." She paused. "You remember much?"

"Ah... y-yes. All of it." He flinched. "I really am sorry."

"Yeah, fine, we established that," she answered crankily. "Please button your fucking pants so we can get to work. Don't have much time."

"Oh. Sorry." He hastily tucked his cum-slick penis back in his trousers and did them up. "W-what are we going to do?"

"Either mess them up bad, or die," Keo replied coldly. "One or the other."

"I'm not seeing a lot of hope for the first option," Blackpool said gloomily. "Would you like me to try and find a towel or something and, uh, clean you up?"

Keo grimaced; her black bush was a matted sticky mess from her nectar and his seed. "This... is your fault," she muttered. "So much cum."

"I'm, uh, sorry," Blackpool said lamely.

"Leave it be for now. It's more important that I look completely helpless. What I want you to do is get over here, sit down next to me, and run your fingers through the hair on the back of my head."

Nodding, he walked over and sat down next to her as she lay on one side. "I'm glad you aren't holding it against me," he said. "Is this really the time for affection, though? I mean, I understand the need for comfort after your ordeal, but if we only have so much time--"

"No, you fucking idiot!" Keo gave a hiss of frustration. "I'm not asking you to ruffle my hair tenderly while I squeal and beg for another fuck. Run your damned fingers through the hair in the back of my head and find the small metal object that's hopefully still there."

"O-oh! Sorry." Carefully, gently, his fingers brushed through her shoulder-length, disheveled black hair, searching. Before long he plucked free a small black-enameled hair clip-pin. "This? It's just a hairpin."

"Yes. Well, almost. I've done some work on it with tools." Keo mulled things over for a second, not liking what the next step would involve. She hated to do this, especially so soon after Lucreze; still, they had little choice. "I need you to do something for me now, Mr. Bla- can I just call you Kevin?"

"Yes. Please do." He gave a nervous laugh. "All things considered."

"Good. Look, Kevin, I'm sorry to ask this of you, but I need you to let me dominate your mind, like Lucreze did just now."

Blackpool frowned deeply. "I'd rather not."

"I know, but it's the only way we're getting out of here."

Eyes shadowed, he stared at his lap. "You're going to have to explain why."

Keo sighed. "These fucking manacles on me don't just serve as cuffs for my wrists. They stop me from burning blood, too. I can dominate minds without that, but only if the person cooperates. If we're going to have a chance at getting out of here we need those shackles off."

"All right, but how does that lead into you dominating--"

"I'm a thief and a villain and a second-story woman," she said curtly, cutting him off. "I'm real good with locks. With that lockpick you just plucked from my hair I can get these shackles open... or I could, except they're on the wrists of the hands I'd need to pick with. So I need to use someone else's hands. Understand?"

"Ahh. Yes, I see." He relaxed a bit. "Very well. Go ahead."

"I need you to lie down next to me, gaze into my eyes, and make skin contact." She paused. "Somewhere decent. Just grab my shoulder."

"Of course!" He moved over to her other side and lay down next to her, his worried brown eyes staring into her hard black eyes. He reached out and hesitantly cupped her bare shoulder.

With a great effort, Keo projected herself forwards into his mind. She met immediate resistance.

"Stop fighting it," she muttered.

"Sorry. I'm trying."

The resistance eased a bit, and she pushed further in. Blackpool made an uncomfortable noise.

Keo gritted her teeth and pushed with her mind. "Let me in, Kevin," she hissed.

He began sweating. "I... I'm trying..."

Acting on a hunch, she shifted, moving her shoulders up and the rest of her body forwards. His hand slipped down to rest on her breast, and his eyes widened. As they did, she pushed through his suddenly distracted mental barrier and flooded into his mind.

There was the usual period of disorientation as their thoughts and emotions flowed together. She was taken greatly aback by how aroused she made him; he had built a dark, romantic image of her as a strong, mysterious, gritty woman of mystery, and had fantasized about her since they met. Now, after actually fucking her once, despite the circumstances, his craven lust for her body caused her cheeks to flush. It was especially striking given that he was very similar to her, a man of reserved and wary attitudes when it came to sex, and feeling deeply betrayed by his ex-fiancee. Keo hadn't imagined that people were capable of seeing her that way, and it made her uncomfortable but also a little thrilled.

Wrenching her thoughts back to business, she mentally directed his body to roll her over so he could get a good look at the shackles behind her back. The runes on them almost glowed with cold power, but from what Kevin could see the lock didn't actually seem that complex. She steered him to take the pick and carefully put it in.

Immediately she had to fight to keep his attention on the shackle lock and not on her bare ass sensually framed in the garter and stockings. As his emotions flooded his body, Keo had the bizarre feeling of being aroused by her own hindquarters, an experience she would have preferred to skip. Focusing her mind, she rammed it insistently into his psyche, forcing his attention back to the lock.

The shackles had been forged with necromantic arts far beyond her knowledge, clearly designed to hold beings of far greater power than she in the full eruption of their rage. She doubted they could be broken by any force they could bring to bear on them, and the dark spells woven into them would likely take an archmage days to unmake. But it never seemed to have occurred to the creator that some dodgy sort of burglar might try and pick them. It wasn't a skill the average undead lord bothered with. As a result, she was pleasantly surprised at just how easy the lock was.

Of course, having to use someone else's hands to do it added some challenge. So did the constant, insistent awareness Kevin had of the roundness of her ass and the sticky bottom half of her snatch peeking out between her legs. As bad as he felt for having done so, he had enjoyed fucking her and wanted to do it again, right now; just forget the shackles and take her here from behind on the bed. Not that he should do it, but he so wanted...

Keo nearly fumbled the lockpick. With a curse, she brutally thrust her psyche deep into his mind and took almost direct control. A few second later, with a click, the shackles popped open and she slipped her thoughts free of his mind, the two separating with a messy flurry of thoughts and emotions.

Kevin groaned and sat backwards, holding his head. "Gods, Keo, did you have to be so rough? I feel like someone drove a metal spike through my skull."

"Yes," Keo said unsympathetically. "If you could have restrained your degenerate lusts I wouldn't have needed to." She paused, then grudgingly added, "Although you seem to do pretty well outside your head, all things considered."

"Yes. Well." He flushed. "I hadn't realized just how hostile you were towards intimacy."

She pursed her lips; apparently she'd let more of her mind get through to him than she'd wanted. "Not hostile. Just uninterested." She shrugged. "Now..." She stood up, walked into a side room, and found what she was looking for; a wooden rack meant to hold wine in some bygone era. She wrenched one of the horizontal poles free, then found a knife lying on a small table and quickly used it to sharpen one end of the short pole to a wicked point.

Returning to the bedchamber, Keo handed the short spear to Blackpool. "Here."

"What do I do with this?" He sounded apprehensive.

"When she comes back, I'm going to attack her when she approaches me. Wait until her attention is totally absorbed with fending me off, then come up behind her and shove that stake through her heart."

"Y-you want me to kill her?" Blackpool said faintly. "I mean... I've never actually killed anyone in my--"

"It won't kill her," Keo said flatly. "It probably wouldn't even kill me now, and I'm a lot younger than her. It will, however, severely inconvenience the bitch. Then I will kill her."

"Oh." He mulled that. "Are you sure you can?"

"With a stake through her heart? Yeah, I can take her."

"No, I mean..." He looked awkward. "You two have a certain... connection."

She started to angrily snarl a reply, then stopped and forced herself to examine what he was saying. "She and I... we're a lot alike, some ways. There's a kinship, an understanding. And..." The truth was that while she didn't like Lucreze that much, Keo did feel sexually attracted to her. She was unused to that level of desire outside of the blood hunger, where sex became indistinguishable from feeding, and she didn't much like it. The fact that she was capable of it at all was an unwelcome and somewhat frightening revelation to her. "Don't worry about that. I'll end her, no hesitation. Just do your part."

"I'll try."

"Do better than try or we're both dead," Keo said curtly. "Maire too, since nobody's going to rescue her aside from us."

"Right." Blackpool glanced around, then retreated to huddle in a corner with the stake concealed behind his back. "Wait here, like this?"

"Yeah." Keo arranged herself on the bed the way she had previously been laying, the cuffs obscured to look as if they were still closed on her wrists. "Now we wait."

---

After what seemed like far too long a time, the door opened and Lucreze returned, a smirk on her face. "Putting that bitch in her place was satisfying," she purred. "Now, speaking of putting bitches in their place..."

"Fuck you," Keo shot back.

"Crude to the last." Lucreze walked to stand next to the bed. One of her pale hands reached out to caress Keo's thigh, tracing the top of her stocking. "And so defiant."

"Disappointed I haven't put you on your back yet?" Keo sat up. "Yearning for a dick I don't have?"

Lucreze jerked back, stung. "That's ridiculous," she said, less than convincingly.

"Oh? You don't want to be my woman?"

Lucreze flushed at that, clearly off-balance and not sure how to respond. She glanced to one side, trying not to meet Keo's knowing eyes.

That was what the black-haired thief had been waiting for. In a flash she flung herself at the fallen nun, burning blood as she did to augment strength and speed.

Lucreze, taken completely by surprise, absorbed several punches and then was grappled. Recovering, she fought back, burning blood herself and trying to use her greater height to her advantage. She was older and more powerful, and the fight should have been a brief one. Keo, however, was an experienced gutter fighter and Lucreze had been a cloistered nun and then a vampire baroness; brawling was not her area of expertise. She shrieked with anger as Keo grabbed a handful of her white dress and tore the entire gown off, letting her ample breasts bounce free, then used the cloth to tangle her legs and send her to the ground. Surging to her feet, she found Keo grabbing both her arms in an iron grip. Face to face, the older vampire opened her mouth to snarl something, only to freeze as Keo aggressively kissed her, still holding her arms pinned between both of them.

Lucreze stood stock still for two seconds, then relaxed and began to return the passionate kiss. Then she screamed as Kevin Blackpool drove the wooden stake through her heart from behind.

As Blackpool hurriedly backpedaled, Keo flung the other vampire to the ground. Pushing Lucreze's bare legs apart, she crawled between, tongue extending.

Howling and thrashing, clawing at the bloody tip jutting from her chest, it still took Lucreze a few seconds to realize that she was not dying, and shfted her focus from the pain in her chest to the pleasure between her legs. She looked down between her breasts to see the dark-haired thief staring back with her mouth clamped over the fallen nun's mound. Lucreze could feel Keo's tongue pressing into her and her lips massaging her clit. Yes, she thought, the crude gutter-vampire that hates everyone, succumbed to the forbidden fruit of the curvy sinful nun. Oh Keo... It took only a minute for Lucreze to orgasm under Keo's methodical oral attentions.

Drinking as much of the fallen nun's nectar as she could, and enjoying it more than she should, Keo crawled up the other vampire's quivering naked body. What she was doing was spurred by necessity and ambition rather than desire, but she still wanted to fuck Lucreze in a way that she wished she didn't. "You wanted me to make you my woman," she told Lucreze. "Be careful what you wish for."

Lucreze's eyes were regretful. She said nothing. Keo bent and kissed her, hands reaching to fondle the fallen nun's full breasts. Lucreze didn't fight, instead she moaned and clutched at Keo's wide hips, wrapping one leg around her dominant lover's thigh, eager to feel what she imagined Keo's cock would be like. As they kissed, Lucreze tasted herself on Keo's lips and moaned into her lover's mouth. A few seconds later, Keo bit down on the other vampire's tongue and began to drink.

It felt like a white hot fire was flowing through her. She bore down on the Lucreze's pale mouth hungrily, her hands squeezing the busty mounds and pinching the nipples. Under her, Lucreze was quivering and making muffled, esctatic noises, groaning low in her throat. Three times the older vampire orgasmed, her back arching up into the younger vampire atop her, eyes rolling back in her head as her hips jerked spasmodically.

Keo drank in a carnal frenzy, and then suddenly it felt like she had been struck by a bolt of lightning composed of pure sexual pleasure. The orgasm was so intense, Keo's mouth opened as she reared her head back and gave a long, climactic scream as she pressed her crotch against the older vampire's thigh. Under her, Lucreze gave a final, shocked gasp of terminal satisfaction and then went still.

Trembling, Keo stood. She felt... strong. Stronger. Little fragments of thought were flickering through her mind, bits of emotion, shreds of memory. Lucreze's. She felt the other vampire inside of her, slowly dissolving as Keo's own being devoured her and added what she had been to its own strength. The fallen nun was still very faintly aware, Keo realized to her horror. Not for very long, though; her essence was dissolving quickly. The final coherent thought Keo could make out was a delirious fantasy of a still-living Lucreze, smiling fondly, lying in bed next to a male version of Keo and stroking his brow.

"Oh gods," she muttered, then burst into tears.

"A-are you... okay?" Blackpool crawled hesitantly from hiding. A crying Keo was outside his realm of experience.

"Yeah." She wiped at her eyes, sniffling. "I took her power. It was awful. Stronger now, though." She straightened. "Let's go get Maire."

"Right." Blackpool paused. "Would you like my tunic to wear, by the way?"

"Yes. Please." Gratefully, Keo accepted his shirt and pulled it on. It didn't quite cover all of her, but it at least hid her breasts and half of her bush and ass.

Keo gave a last, unhappy glance at Lucreze's corpse, lying sprawled on the ground with her face twisted into a mask of orgasmic bliss. As she watched, the voluptuous body crumbled away into dark ash, leaving only a ghastly, age-pocked skeleton grinning up at the ceiling. Shuddering, she hurried out the door.

---

Keo and Kevin passed through the empty corridors carefully, ducking into rooms now and then when they thought a ghostly servant might be coming. It seemed unusually quiet, though, given the trouble they'd had avoiding notice earlier in the day.

"I think the dark mage has a workshop in the dungeons," Keo muttered. "Likely that's where he's got Maire."

"Do you think she's still alive?" Blackpool asked worriedly.

"Dunno. Hope so. Probably in a lot of danger." Keo paused, trying to decide which way to go at an intersection. She took the left-hand fork. "Don't like how that necromancer was looking at her."

"Are we going to be able to handle him? He broke you to his will fairly easily out in the courtyard."

Keo grimaced, the reminder stirring her anger. "I know. Going to try and jump him before he knows we're here. You know the old saying about wizards, shoulders?"

"'No matter how subtle the wizard, a dagger between the shoulderblades will severely cramp his style,'" Kevin quoted. "Yes, I've heard of it. I never expected to find it so... applicable."

"Well, there you are," Keo said flatly. "Broadening your horizons."

"I suppose."

They reached a heavy cellar door, which had been locked with a thick iron padlock that took Keo about five seconds to pick. "Must not get many burglars in these parts," Keo stated.

"I wonder why," Blackpool replied, shaking his head.

A dark spiral staircase lay behind the door, and they crept down it slowly. Amidst the dripping of water and the scurrying of rats, they could hear noises from below, ominous ones like wails or cries, mixed with others that sounded like roars or grunts. Glancing at each other, they moved uneasily downwards, trying to make as little noise as they could.

At the bottom of the stairs they could make out dim, flickering light, as if it opened onto a room lit by low and unsteady torches or candles. The noises issued from it, and tensely they descended to the end of the steps, and peered out into the chamber beyond.

What they saw froze them in their tracks.

This was the necromancer's work area, formerly a crypt or subterranean chapel of some sort. The biers and alcoves built into the walls were covered with short, waxy black candles, burning with a flickering light that cast shadows wildly about the low-vaulted chamber. Two hallways led off into the darkness of the catacombs, and in the center of the room was a stone slab. Maire lay half-upon it, naked, eyes closed; an arcane design rimmed by evil runes had been painted upon her chest and belly with a reddish substance, and it glowed faintly with dark magic. Her legs sprawled off the slab, which was unsurprising because the necromancer Wilhelm stood between her opened thighs, gripping them while thrusting at her red-curled cunt.

That wasn't what left them frozen, however. Just beyond the slab, between the two yawning catacombs, a ghostly figure of Maire was crouched on hands and knees. Mounting her from behind, and hammering a bulbous cock into her, was a spectral humanoid with badly distorted features, as if a wax doll of a man had been held too close to a fire, then some cruel lunatic had tried to rebuild it with body parts from an insect. A second ghostly wraith, just as distorted but with numerous eyes upon its misshapen body, was holding her head, making her suck it's bumpy spectral organ. Maire's ghostly eyes were wide and bulging with horror, ectoplasmic tears pouring down her cheeks. And a line of the hideous dhostly figures waited on each end for their turn.

For a second they just stood there, listening to Wilhelm's grunts and the ghostly Maire's muffled screams. Then Keo snarled. Her mouth opened wide, revealing vicious fangs, and she charged soundlessly into the room.

Wilhelm sensed her at the last second. He had just enough time to snap round his head, but not even quite enough time to withdraw from Maire, before Keo hit him like a small, enraged bull. He stumbled, leaning back against Maire's left thigh as his cock slipped free of her tight sheath, before Keo bit down on his throat.

There was a agonized strangled gurgle as Wilhelm tried to chant a spell. He clawed at her with weakening hands to no avail; Keo gnawed and methodically pulled him down, between the legs of his victim as she bore him to the ground. For a long span of seconds, she crouched over Wilhelm's body, making wet chewing sounds. Then she stood, mouth smeared with crimson, and shook her head as if to clear it.

"That's the necromancer taken care of," she said blackly. "Let's have a look at Maire."

They did. She was lying on the slab motionless and pale, eyes closed, as if dead. Yet they could see her chest rise and fall; she was still breathing. Keo carefully put a hand on her shoulder and tried to shake her awake. As she had suspected, though, this did nothing.

Blackpool tore a strip off the dead necromancer's robe. "Let me wipe those cursed symbols off her--"

Keo snatched the cloth away from him, glaring. "No. Bad idea. Look."

She pointed to where the ghostly Maire was crouched and moaning before her hideous mounter, and her mouth plugged with a deformed cock. Ghostly Maire was looking at Keo and Kevin, her agonized eyes pleading.

"He's drawn her soul or spirit out of her body. You go messing up the runes, you could leave her stuck like that for eternity. I shouldn't have killed the bastard before we made him fix this. Got too angry." She wiped the blood from her mouth with the cloth.

"What are we going to do?"

Looking around, Keo pointed to a solitairy book sitting on a lectern to one side of the room. "Bring me that."

Hurriedly, Kevin complied.

Lips pursing, Keo flipped it open and began leafing through it. As she had hoped, it was Wilhelm's spell and ritual book, with detailed notes and diagrams. She hurriedly paged along, trying to find the correct ceremony.

The spectral Maire cried out, body convulsing with an orgasm. A few seconds later the spectral ravisher behind seemed to finish as well, pulling its cock free of her with a dribbling splatter of ectoplasmic cum. The creature stepped aside and shimmered, reforming into a recognizable human shape as globs of ectoplasm drifted off. The next wraith in line trotted up; by the look of him, the ghost of a mounted rider who had merged with his horse, resulting in a ghastly sort of small equine with human-like face and forelegs. It had two organs one above the other: the upper one like a man's penis, the lower similiar in size but shaped like a horsecock, and when the ghostly human-horse bent over Maire, it stuffed the first into her ass, and positioned the second to impale her swollen cunt. The ghostly student whimpered as the shimmering man-horse thrust deep into her violated hole then began to fuck her like a ghostly mare - making a cruel carnal jest of her name.

"How long is this going to take?" Blackpool said, clearly upset.

"Dunno," Keo said, flipping the page.

"Because she's being--"

Keo spat angrily. "I know, damnit! But if I fuck this up she could be stuck like that forever. Or until someone good enough to un-stick her comes along. You haven't had some undead shit like this happen to you. You don't know how horrible this is. I have. So shut the fuck up and let me concentrate on doing this right so we can save her."

Blackpool tok a step back. "Sorry. I just... never mind."

"I know." Keo read on, eyes lighting up as she finally found the spell she wanted. "Ahh, here we go."

There was silence in the room for a good minute, except for Maire's muffled moans and the bestial grunts of the ghosts. The insectoid spectre in her mouth climaxed into her gagging throat and then withdrew, leaving the ghostly Maire drooling ectoplasmic cum. The wraith seemed to slough off ectoplasm disfigurement and reform into a ghostly man-shape as it stepped aside, only to be replaced by another spectre that looked like an older woman's upper half melted atop the lower half of a young man. The new wraith stuffed it's curved cock into Maire's gasping mouth.

Keo continued to read with furrowed brow, face growing increasingly dark. Finally she looked up. "It's a ritual to leech her life energy and use it to restore the morphogenic fields of the ghosts fucking her."

"The what?" Kevin asked.

"The... the stuff that gives them shape. The stuff that lets them become physical in the living world. Their energy is all fucked up from that siege a century or so back by a bunch of nuns from the Convent States. That's why the Baron's minions look like such a freak show. Like they were put through an astral mixing bowl. Restoring these ghosts is what the Baron employed throatless here for."

"All right. Can you stop it?"

"I think so. If I'm reading this right. It'll require necromantic energy, so I'll have to burn blood. Maybe alter the runes a bit. I don't think this particular ritual was designed to be turned off; it was intended as a fatal leeching sort of thing." Keo grimaced. "Gimme a second to think about how to do this. I'm not a wizard and this shit's out of my league."

Blackpool nodded.

They both glanced uncomfortably at Maire's spectral form, gasping on the ghost woman's cock and shuddering under the man-horse. The melted man-horse climaxed with a shrill whinny, and pulled both cocks out of her and trotted off. The next in line limped up eagerly, a ghoulish man with distorted features that made his head resemble a bat, and arms longer than they should be, like an ape. He pushed his short, fat penis into her seeping cunt, evoking a grunt from Maire as she continued  to suck the woman's cock. Then the deformed ghost creature bent himself forward over her ass, grabbing her pert young tits and squeezing them. It's hideous maw drooled on her back and the thing began thrusting into her rapidly. Maire closed her eyes, face twisting. Seconds later Maire convulsed and shuddered in orgasm, tears streaming down her spectral cheeks.

"Okay," Keo finally said. "I'm going to try this with no alterations. Let's hope for the best." She placed her hand on the forehead of Maire's living body atop the altar, and burnt blood as she exerted her will, trying to create a spirit suction.

She met immediate resistance. With caution, she cast her senses out to try and discover the nature of the problem. After several seconds, she frowned. "This isn't good. She's getting more vivid sensation in her spectral body than her real body, and it's anchoring her out."

"Can you do something about that?" Blackpool asked anxiously. "Increase the pull or something?"

"That's what I'm going to try." Keo burnt still more blood, more than she was really comfortable with, trying to brute force it.

The ghostly Maire cried out and her form distorted slightly with ghostly tendrils wafting back to the living body, but her spectre remained in place. The woman-man arched its back in orgasm and spurted ectoplasm-cum in Maire's mouth before withdrawing, leaving her chin dripping with translucent cum. The ghostly woman collapsed in a heap and then rose in two pieces, the spectral woman and man now separated, shambled off. A guard whose head had sunk down and imbedded in his chest was next, hobbling up on mismatched legs and one arm, he crammed a melted-looking cock between her weary, waiting lips. The grotesque man-bat hugged his long, twisted body against her smooth back, it's clawed fingers mashing her round breasts, and continued humping her dripping pussy frenetically.

"Damn it," Keo hissed. Something occurred to her, and she frowned. She wasn't comfortable with the idea, but given the situation it was worth a try. Making sure to maintain skin contact, she slid her hands from the readhead's forehead, to Maire's pale breasts, and began to squeeze the soft flesh.

There was an immediate increase in the suction and the wispy tendrils became more solid. Keo rolled her thumbs over Maire's nipples, and the tendrils became brighter. She burnt still more blood, and now the ghostly Maire was fading, her limbs distorting and melting into the tendrils connected to her living body. Almost... she almost had it...

Keo leaned over the redhead and kissed her mouth, sucking lightly on Maire's lips and pressing her tongue between them.

There was an audible cracking noise, and Maire gasped, her eyes snapping open. The ghosts howled in rage and disappointment, and faded away.

Keo immediately withdrew her hands. "Just lie still."

"T-th... th-ank... you," Maire whispered weakly. "Knew... you'd... come for me..."

"Sorry it took so long," Keo said. She frowned, looking at the redhead and not liking what she was seeing. "I think we may need to carry you. You're not looking so good."

"No... need," Maire whispered with effort. "Most... of my life is gone... They used me... over... and over... won't be long... Quiet now... peaceful... thank you."

"Surely not," Blackpool said, taking Maire's cold hand. "Keo, is there anything you can do?"

She stared at the dying woman, then shook her head. "No. I'm not a healer, except for my own body. There's nothing I can do for her." She hesitated, then frowned. "Unless..."

"Go on?" Blackpool asked hopefully.

"I can't stop her from dying. But I can... do to her what my Master did to me. Make it so she'll rise as a vampire." Keo's face was grim. "If that's what she wants."

They looked at Maire.

Weakly, she shook her head. "No," she said with effort. "I think... just want it to end... I tasted... undeath... pity Keo." She coughed weakly. "Thank you... for saving me... If you see my sister... give her... my love."

"We will," Keo said quietly. "I'm sorry we didn't get here sooner."

Maire beckoned Keo closer, and the thief leaned her head down to listen. "Keo..." the dying woman gasped.

"Yeah?"

"You're... really good... kisser." Maire gave a half smile, and then her eyes were still. A final breath left her mouth, and her head tilted to the side.

Straightening, Keo removed her borrowed tunic and covered the naked corpse of the university student. "Let's go," she said harshly. "I'm done with this place."

Silently, Blackpool followed her.

---

After leaving the cellars, they had realized they weren't sure what to do next. Escape was the obvious thing, yet Keo couldn't depart without the coach to carry her the long distance back to her own coffin, and the coach was currently under Amelie's control. That meant that to get away, they had to secure the Countess. Yet from what the Baron had said, she was likely in even worse straits than they were. Normally that would delight Keo, but given the current situation, it just pissed her off.

Ultimately they decided to check the guest rooms, on the chance that the Baron might have stashed the Countess in one of them until he was ready to do whatever it was he was going to do.

Their search of Amelie's room turned up nothing, although Keo took the opportunity to dress herself in the black velvet riding costume she had left there so that she didn't have to trot around the halls stark naked. The next room down was Chevonne's, which both of them had reservations about entering. They opened the door anyway.

'The punishment of hounds', Baron Zagoyla had said. Keo had assumed this was something along the lines of being beaten and chained like a dog. Instead, they found Chevonne on her hands and knees on the floor, shackled atop a wooden frame. And mounting her, growling and whimpering, was one of the Baron's spectral hunting hounds. It's upper body phased in and out of visible sight as it concentrated on taking her, humping away at her spread golden pussy with bestial rawness. Chevonne's long blond hair waved back and forth in time with her large dangling breasts as they bounced under her canine master. Her aristocratic face contorted in a look of mingled shame, anger, and sexual lust. Her mouth hung open, tongue slightly out, giving her the look of a wanton bitch being bred.

Then she saw them standing in the doorway, and her heavy, lascivious panting turned into embarrassed gasping between the hounds thrusts. "Get out!" she raged. "Get... ouhhhhht of my room!"

"Tell us where the Countess is, and we'll leave you to your new lover," Keo said unkindly, not expecting any useful answer.

"She's... innngh the chapel... wwwwith my husband," Chevonne panted. "He's goinnnng... to make youuuuu... SUFFER!"

Well, that was unexpected. "Thank you," Keo said with mock gratitude. She eyed the woman for a second, then added, reluctantly, "Do you want me to unchain you?"

"No," Chevonne answered immediately. "I'mmmm... taking my puuuunishment... as my lord wishhhhes."

"Yeah, that's not all you're taking, slut. Suit yourself," the thief said, shrugging. "Enjoy your dog cock."

"He givessss... better ssssex... than uhhhh'd wager that... pathhhhhetic idiot... ahhhht your heels... woooould have," the blonde shot back. "I'd rather haaaaave... dead doooog's penis... innnnn me than Kevin."

Keo made an obscene gesture at her, and shut the door. "What the fuck did you ever see in that bitch, Kevin?"

"I have no idea." Blackpool's face was grey. "She wasn't like that when we met. Not... openly, at least."

Keo shook her head. "Sorry."

"It's all right." He glanced at her, and frowned. "Are you all right, Keo?"

"Not really. I've had a shitty day and--"

"No, I mean... physically all right? You look really pale. Almost blue. Like an illness."

She sighed. "I burnt my blood fighting Lucreze, then I burnt a lot more than I planned, to get Maire's spirit back in her body. I don't have much left. It's got me worried, because if I have to do anything significant with my powers when we go to get my master, it's going to push me down to levels that are not good."

"Is it dangerous to you?" Kevin asked worriedly.

"It's dangerous to you," Keo muttered. "The less blood I have, the less control I have. I get too low and you will start looking like a yummy snack. I get low enough and I'll go berserk and turn into a feeding predator until I have enough blood to get my senses back."

"Which would potentially ruin things for us both if it happens at a delicate time," Blackpool noted. "Look, can't you do what Lucreze did and just... feed on me a little? Not enough blood to do any serious harm, just enough to refill your supply a bit?"

"Yeah, see, once I start it's not so easy to stop," Keo looked at Blackpool's shirtless chest. "I could kill you without meaning to if I can't get myself to stop drinking."

"Lucreze didn't seem to have any trouble," Blackpool protested.

"Lucreze was two centuries older and had more control," Keo said testily. "She also had a peasant banquet the night before, and had literally just arrived from draining the blonde dog-whore dry. She was probably so stuffed that it took an effort to drink from you."

"Still... what would you give better odds: you drinking a little now and stopping, or you drinking in a frenzy and stopping?" Blackpool pointed out. "Because the odds of you having to power up to get Countess D'Bastian free, seem to me to be pretty high."

Shit. He was right. Keo sighed. "You're willing to risk me drinking? You could die if I can't stop soon enough."

"Yes. I trust you to be able to control yourself. And I'll die here regardless, if we can't get out."

"Oh for fuck's sake, now I'm going to feel even more guilty if you die," Keo snarled. "Come on, let's go back to Amelie's room. I'd rather not do this in the hall."

They did, shutting and locking the door behind them, and sat side by side on the bed.

Keo shifted worriedly, then tried to steel her will. "Okay. Give me your arm."

Wordlessly, Kevin did so. She studied it for a second, then opened her mouth, willing her fangs to lengthen.

They didn't. She frowned, and tried again. Nothing.

"You can start any time," Blackpool said tensely.

"I'm trying," Keo muttered. "I can't seem to... damnit." She sighed. "Fuck. I was sort of afraid of this. I guess I can only feed when I'm aroused, in the sense of rage, combat, or sex."

"Would you like me to slap you across the face a few times and call you names?" Blackpool said with an uneasy laugh. "It doesn't seem that hard to annoy you."

"No. You definitely don't want me feeding on you in a rage. Just ask Mister Throatless Necromantic Rapist back in the cellar." Keo scowled, sullenly reviewing her options.

There was an obvious answer, of course, one that usually would have provoked a flat, angry rejection from her. To her surprise though, thinking about it, she found she didn't actually mind the idea that much, and was actually faintly interested. I really have changed, she thought uneasily. And not just in becoming undead. She wasn't sure that she liked it. Then again... she had decided after becoming a vampire that she wasn't going to let herself become a monster, and was going to fight it and try and be a decent person despite her vile condition and the demands it made of her. The more she had tried to do that though, the more she realized how it kept her from doing things she had thought nothing of before. That led to the uncomfortable thought that maybe she had been a monster long before she and Lise had ever stumbled into Amelie's crypt looking for jewels.

Sighing, she tugged her black shirt over her head and tossed it over a chair. Standing, she unbuckled her belt.

Blackpool stared at her with a puzzled look.

She glanced at him neutrally. "Don't just sit there. Take your clothes off."

"Oh... do you really want to--"

"The fuck do you want? An engraved invitation?" she said crankily. "Look, I get you're trying to be a gentleman, but let's please get on with it."

"Right. Okay." He started to undress.

Keo slipped her pants off, put them on the back of the chair, then lay back on the bed, propping herself up with her elbows.

Blackpool finished undressing. He was erect this time, she saw; not the biggest she'd ever seen but not tiny either.

She motioned him forwards. "Um. I guess... I guess we'd better do this the simple way, with you on top," she said quietly. "I've never actually done it with a man... I mean normal, not like earlier."

"Ah... well, people manage to figure it out every day I suppose. It can't be too hard," Kevin replied with a nervous laugh. "Where... ah, where did you want to bite me?"

"Arm or shoulder. We'll see what's easier for me to reach." He moved to crouch between her legs and bent over her, placing his hands on the bed at either side of her arms.

She looked up at him and swallowed. "I'll do my best not to take too much."

"I'll try and be gentle. I know this must be hard for you." He reached down with one hand and adjusted his erection, moving it into position at her black bush. "I'm going to put it in now." He rubbed the head up and down her slit, spreading her dewy lips with the tip.

"Okay. Do it."

He did, and Keo hissed a long sigh as his penis pushed into her waiting vagina. She was slightly wet, and so when he lowered himself down onto her and began to move, there was no discomfort, only enjoyable friction and the heat of his cock inside her.

"You okay?" Blackpool asked, voice coming a little labored as he moved.

She opened her legs a little wider to accomodate him, and wrapping her feet around him in a cradle. That seemed to work pretty well. "Yes. Doing... good," she murmured, voice catching a little bit. "Can you touch my breasts? They're.... they're sensitive."

"Sure." He released his stiff shafft and moved his hand to tease her small, flat breast.

She gave a low moan and wriggled her hips under him. Lazily, her hands reached up to hold his shoulders. Another moan.  She could feel her fangs lengthening in her mouth now, and the hunger growing. "I'm gonna bite you," she groaned, tossing her head slightly to move her black hair from her face. "Okay?"

"Yeah," Blackpool grunted. "Go ahead."

With a final moan, she sank her teeth into his right arm, causing him to wince in sudden pain. That gave way to an increasing fervor in his attentions, squeezing her breast while he serviced her tight pussy with languid, slow strokes. Keo drank, the ambrosia of the rich warm blood melding with the pleasure of her willing body. She had never actually drunk the blood of an aroused male before, and it had a different sort of taste than the women she'd supped from. 

Her black eyes gazed into his soft brown eyes, and she desperately hoped, with a stab of anguish, that the expression on her face wasn't like the other vampires as they had fed on the peasant girl the other night.

Keo suckled at his arm, stroking his shoulders as she did, her chest heaving as he made love to her. It was an effort to try and keep track of time, the usual white hot fire being more of a lazy burn as she used her feet to pull her hips up against his thrusts, feeling his balls thump against the bottom of her ass with each deep penetration.

Blackpool started to speed up his rhythm slightly, working his penis faster in her slick hole. Keo coiled her legs around his buttocks and clutched at his back, still drinking. After another minute, his body stiffened and then his hips shuddered with an orgasm. His hot cock throbbed inside her and a sticky hot warmth flooded her cunt, splashing back into her dead womb. She remained curled about him as he spent himself deep in her, then, as his member inside her began to soften, he started to gently signal a pulling away.

She wanted to keep drinking. She wanted all the blood, ALL of it. It took extreme willpower to override that, and with a huge effort she pulled her mouth from his arm and turned her head to one side.

Blackpool sat up and carefully slid out of her, his cock coming free with a gush of their mingled essence. "Are you all right?" he asked softly.

"Yeah. Wanted more. Didn't have an orgasm. But it was good." Keo unwrapped her legs from him, allowing him to fully dismount. She was actually somewhat shocked that the experience had been enjoyable. Uncomfortable, but not unpleasant. "And I didn't kill you."

"It would have been a good way to die," he said with a nervous laugh. "Sorry I didn't give you time to reach a peak."

"Didn't do it for that. Needed blood. That's the important thing." She sat up, and then hesitantly gave him a smile. "But it was okay."

"Good." He smiled warmly back.

With a blush now visible on her skin, Keo climbed off the bed and cleaned herself. Then she silently dressed. "Now comes the hard part."

"Well. Nothing ventured..." Blackpool shrugged.

"Yup." Turning, they unlocked the door and left.

---

The trip down to the chapel through the stone horror of Castle Gravenstone proved uneventful. They paused outside the vaulted door to the sanctuary, feeling the dark power and corruption radiating from the place, daunting them. Dire noises came from within.

"For a chapel, this doesn't seem very holy," Blackpool muttered.

"It's the heart of this darkness, most like," Keo replied dourly. "Where the Baron was cursed. Let's have a look inside."

Carefully, quietly, she cracked the door open slightly. The chapel inside was stained with age and blackened as if by fire. The stained glass in the windows had distorted and twisted into hideous shapes, and the holy symbols upon the walls had been defaced and desecrated. The altar of Kravos in the center of the sanctuary had been smashed and overturned, lying in marble fragments across the floor; in its place a dull obsidian slab with real skulls mortared to the base had been reared. The floor about it was stained with old blood.

Countess Amelie D'Bastian lay on her back on the altar, her hands shackled above her head and secured to a chain anchored to the floor. Her dress had been torn open down the middle, baring her statuesque body, and between her spread, struggling legs stood the naked skeletal form of Baron Stepan Zagolya. The Countess's shrieks of rage and exertion pierced the air as the death knight fucked her savagely, ghostly cock pounding vampiric cunt.

Keo hesitated, feeling oddly conflicted. As much as she hated her master and considered this a sort of poetic justice, she also hated the Baron and deeply resented him taking such liberties. Then too, Amelie was HERS to be revenged on, not some bony shithead's. Not that it mattered either way; if either she or Kevin wanted to get out of here, then they needed her master's help.

"Going to slip in and try to undo those shackles without him noticing," Keo said quietly. "They look like the same kind that were on me; if I get them off, she can use her powers and we can make a fight of it. Stay here and wish me luck."

"Good luck," Blackpool whispered back, then gave her shoulder a quick squeeze.

She half-smiled, then slipped into the chapel.

Thankfully the Baron was standing on the far side of the block from her, so by crouching low and moving carefully she was able to keep it between her and his line of sight. His attention seemed to be focused on what he was doing anyway. Leaning slightly over the Countess's nude, thrashing body, his skeletal hands squeezed her big, pale breasts with his yellowing claws, kneading the lush flesh with covetous bone fingers. His bare pelvis, shreds of dried flesh still clinging to it, slammed against her pubic mound over and over, ramming his transparent penis into Amelie's shaved, exposed snatch. The snakeheaded jeweled assplug she wore, was still inserted, tapping rhythmically against the stone.

"This may take longer than I expected," the Death Knight murmured. "You grip your power like your womanhood grips my length."

"TREACHEROUS BASTARD!" Amelie shrieked. "GET OFF ME!" The bony fingers tweaked both stiff nipples, and she gave a unwilling moan of passion. 

"Arrogant woman," Baron Zagoyla said. "I confess in the centuries of our acquaintance I had often longed to master your famous body, to dominate the celebrated seductress until she broke and begged for more. We will reach that stage, eventually." He gave one breast a slap at the same time he bore down on her straining cunt with a roll of his hips, and Amelie gave a cry of carnal pleasure. "I believe we are getting there already."

"GET... OFF.... AHHHHN!" Amelie's head flung back as the Baron's skull bent to nip at her bouncing breasts. The jewelry on her arms sparkled redly as she shuddered in the throes of a growing orgasm. "AAAAAAAHN!"

Quietly, Keo crept to the base of the slab and reached out to grab the shackles. Amelie's head, bent back in her agonized pleasure, dangled over the edge; her eyes flicked down, saw Keo, and widened. Hastily Keo put one finger to her own lips, signaling silence. The Countess's contorted, strained face signaled understanding, and with haste Keo got out her lockpick and set to work on the shackles.

Her master lifted her head, looking down between her quivering breasts to keep watch on her skeletal rapist as her pale body rocked back and forth under his assault. She moaned and lowered her head back over the edge of the slab.

Keo, as she worked, was aware of Amelie's eyes on her again; her master's gaze holding a curious quality to it. It was shame, Keo realized with a bit of a shock. Not from the sex, surely, but that Keo would see her so helplessly violated. She glanced back, and their eyes met for a second.

Then Amelie lifted her head with a shriek, her body convulsing with orgasm and arcing on the obsidian slab. She screamed and moaned with the explosive climax, cheeks flushed a dark red, gasping as her heavy tits were pinched and pulled by the skeletal hands, lengthening her climax. The violent jerking of her body caused her wrists to flail, making Keo drop the lockpick with a clatter.

At the other end of the slab, the Baron made a startled noise, clearly having heard something. He started to lean around to look, and Keo cringed, snatching up the lockpick and frantically trying to pop the shackles before he saw her. It wasn't going to be in time, she knew. 

"Hello!" Kevin Blackpool's voice rang out as he stepped into the chapel. "Can you give me directions to Oldmarket? I'm afraid I took a wrong turn somewhere."

Baron Zagolya's skeletal head snapped around to glare at the intruder. "You dare!?!" He extended one skeletal hand to gesture at Blackpool, not ceasing the thrusting of his bony hips."I shall choke the life from you for intruding on my conquest of my newest concubine!"

With a strangled gasp, Blackpool rose off the floor by an unseen force at his neck, leaving him suspended and gasping for breath. His face began to turn a dangerous purple and his legs kicked at the air.

Keo's pick turned the clasp wth a click, and the shackles fell open.

With an earpiercing howl of pure fury that shattered several of the windows, Amelie surged up with a blaze of dark energy that flung Baron Zagolya from between her legs. His skeletal body went flying back across the room to hit a wall hard enough to crack the stones. Her shredded gown fell from her nude body in tatters, spread out over the slab and across the skulls at the base.

The elder vampire stood naked and beautfully resolute, her open cunt dripping a dark ooze from their mingled undead fluids. Her eyes glowed a hellish red, and both hands crackled with midnight arcana.

Blackpool slumped to the floor, rubbing his throat. Keo leapt up to stand next to her master. As the Death Knight rose to his feet, he looked warily at the two of them, particularly the Countess almost incandescent with aroused power.

The Baron rumbled, "I can still kill one of you. At least one."

Amelie seethed, staring at him. Then she turned to Keo. "We are leaving," she said curtly. "Now."

"Ah.... I have something to fetch, quickly," Keo said nervously.

"VERY quickly," the Countess said with strained patience.

Keo fled, motioning for Blackpool to follow.

They dashed through the halls and down to the necromancer's cellar. Blackpool hefted Maire's body over his shoulders, and they hurried back upstairs.

Keo could sense her master's location now; the sheer amount of power being exerted made it unmissable. She had never before seen Amelie's fury, only irritation or mild annoyance, and it scared the hell out of her.

The Countess was in the courtyard when they arrived. "A dead woman?" she said acidly. "You waste time for a dead woman?" She gestured, and Maire's corpse rose limply to the top of the coach, landing impaled on some decorative spikes. "Get in."

Swallowing, Keo and Blackpool climbed in, followed by the Countess. Then, with a rattle, the coach rolled off out the gatehouse.

For almost half an hour they sat in silence, Keo and Blackpool exchanging nervous glances, the Countess seething and regaining her composure. She hadn't yet materialized the remains of her gown around her nakedness or attended her tousled hair, and Blackpool had to take pains not to glance at her pale, fuck-flushed, voluptuous magnificence.

Finally Amelie looked at Keo. "I am gravely disappointed in you, young one. No doubt that cattish bitch Lucreze will tell the tale of your failure and my... ravishment, far and wide among our kind." Her voice was stony and her stare was daggers.

Keo replied protectively, "Lucreze won't be telling anyone anything any more, master." Nervously, Keo added, "I, ah... I put what you told me to good use."

The Countess squinted, and she peered intently at Keo for a second. Then her eyes widened and astonishment spread over her face and she slowly smiled. "Oh, well done," she said softly. "To reverse an ambush from an older and more powerful vampire, on their home ground, and not only survive it, but defeat them so utterly that you could feed upon their power... Yes, others of us will speak of that with great respect and wariness. I withdraw my expression of disappointment." Her smile vanished, and she scolded, "But next time, little mouse, you must tell me before you pick such a fight. I was taken entirely by surprise, which was... uncomfortable."

"I'm sorry, master." Shit, had she really just apologized to the bitch? "I'll try not to do it again."

"Yes, well." Amelie sighed and glanced out the window. "I shall have to mark the Baron off my social list. At least he did not manage to weaken me more than a fraction." Her gaze turned to Blackpool. "Is he dinner?"

"Ah... no. I'm going to let him go in Dylak-Leem, for now. He was useful. And you told me it was gauche to kill the help."

Amelie beamed. "Yes! You are listening and learning, my love. There is hope for you yet. And the meat on the roof?"

Keo winced. "I just want to bury her somewhere she'll stay buried."

"There is plenty of space in Ghasthauver. Put her in one of the crypts until you feel like digging the grave. I shall ward it against hungry ghouls, if you wish." Amelie stretched, her large breasts jiggling in a way that made Blackpool swallow and look hastily out the window.

---

The ride back to Dylak-Leem was uneventful, and they stopped at the cemetery a few hours before morning.

Amelie stepped out of the coach. She was dressed again in the low-cut scarlet gown with emeralds and pearls, and her hair was coiffed again. "I will stow your dead woman away. Go take your young man to the city and return."

"Yes, master," Keo said obediently.

After leaving Maire's body with her master, they drove on. The pair finally stopped at an inn in a middle-class tradesman's district.

Blackpool climbed out. "Well," he said awkwardly.

"Ahh... yeah," Keo replied.

They were silent for a few seconds.

"It was nice to meet you," Blackpool said. "I mean... except for... you know."

"Yeah," Keo replied, squirming.

They were silent for a few seconds.

"Uh... when I find lodgings, I'll leave my address at the front desk of the inn here," He said hesitantly. "In case, you know, I can ever help in any way."

"Ah. Yeah," Keo replied.

Silence.

"Well, I'd better be going," Blackpool said, and turned.

"I'll come by at night, I can't go out in the day," Keo said suddenly. "Can I just let myself in if you're asleep?"

"Ah... yes." He glanced back. "Yes, that's fine."

"Okay." She looked down. "See you, I guess."

"Good bye."

"Yeah."

After he had vanished into the inn, Keo directed the coach to return to the graveyard. Then she pulled out the other thing she had taken from the Baron's cellar. Wilhelm's spellbook. What she had seen had convinced her that it was going to take knowledge as well as practice to best Amelie, and this was a starting point.

She glanced back at the rapidly disappearing inn as it vanished behind her. She supposed that was another starting point.

The coach rattled through the darkened streets of the city, carrying her back to her grave and master-lover. Within an hour she would be in the cold embrace of all three.

To Be Continued?

---