Into The Blackest Night

By Dee Phillips

Valerie was a seducer, a temptress—a vamp. She lured innocent victims to their death, all for the blood hunger of the vampires she served. I was all she had ever known, and the only way she knew to survive. Valerie was trapped in a lifestyle that tortured her very soul, but what could she do? She had no way out...that is until Jonathon, the vampire hunter came along.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dee Phillips
• Release date: Nov 22, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465829856

Dee Phillips

An English Major at University, Denny (Dee) Phillips loves science fiction and enjoys coming up with new ideas in that genre. Her newest interest is in vampire books. Denny has made a career out of writing website content articles and has researched many different topics. As such, she also has many information books available.

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Into The Blackest Night

A Vampire Romance

By Denny Phillips

Published by Denny Phillips at Smashwords

Copyright 2011 Denny Phillips

Smashwords Edition, License Notes.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Into The Blackest Night

Valerie

Standing under the harsh glare of the lonely streetlight, I knew I looked stunning in my ruby red satin dress. My shining black hair flowed smoothly down my back to my waist. My bright green eyes were outlined in thickly mascara-ed black lashes giving me a coy, sexy look and my full lips were painted a shimmering crimson. The satin dress flowed smoothing over my lithe body, outlining every curve of my slim figure. I looked beautiful and enticing. That was the idea. The better I looked, the better chance I had at attracting an innocent victim. I was the lure that roped them in, the vamp, the seductress. I didn’t like it—in fact I hated it—but it wasn’t my idea.

The street was no more than an alleyway really, tucked away behind some failing warehouse district just off the harbor in the small city of Thunder Bay in northern Ontario. The alleyway between Simpson and Hardisty streets was the type found in declining districts everywhere, where only derelicts and unsavory characters would chance to visit. There was a small hotel nearby, dingy and decrepit looking, where I supposedly would take my ‘mark’. The whole area looked like a mugger’s paradise with dirt and garbage piled up in crumbling doorways. If I wasn’t who I was and knew what I knew, I would probably be afraid to stand here. But as things were, I was in no danger whatsoever. In fact I was part of the danger.

I looked down the dim street with a bit of a frown on my face. I was the only one ‘working’ this particular alleyway. Most of the real prostitutes favored the busier cross street about two blocks down. At the moment, there was no activity in my alley. No one was in sight. There was just a scrawny stray orange cat rummaging through the trash bins a few feet in front of me. His small pink nose emerged every so often to get a whiff of fresh air. A slight breeze caused bits of ragged paper and dirt to float around and brought a slightly sickening smell to assault my nose. It wasn’t pleasant, the smell of the garbage mixed with the unclean gutter odor, but I had withstood worse. My nose hardly even crinkled. What was this to the smell of death that I constantly lived with?

I sighed and leaned back against the dirty light post. I had been standing here for about two hours and my three-inch stiletto heels were starting to hurt my feet. I just wished it was over. I didn’t want to do this, but I had no choice.

It was my job to lure men to their deaths. That was why I had been saved initially, for just this purpose. I was at least glad that the men who were about to meet their end were not the nicest characters on the face of this earth. In fact, as I was told time and again, they were the scum of the earth so it didn’t really matter if they died. I tried to convince myself of that every day. I was really just helping to clean up the unsavory characters in the city and make it a better place for decent people to live. After all, who but scum would even think of taking up with someone like me? Who would miss them? They had to be up to no good. They had to be bad—didn’t they?

This wasn’t my first time at this particular duty. I was playing the part of a prostitute to lure the unsuspecting men to a deadly fate. I didn’t really have to have sex with them or anything. I just had to get them to a place where they could be killed easily without attracting any attention. I didn’t even have to do the horrible deed myself either. I was just the lure—the vamp.

As I ran the word through my head, I almost laughed aloud. How fitting it was that I should end up a vampire’s ‘vamp’. But really it wasn’t an apt description of how I wished to be at all or how I felt. I was no seductress, at heart anyways. I had only just turned eighteen, as far as I knew, although I didn’t keep a strict tab on dates. I knew there were lots of prostitutes on the streets that were much younger than I was. I ran into them all the time. But since I wasn’t really a prostitute that didn’t matter. I was only a slave, a vamp for vampires’ purposes and not a prostitute at all.

There were three vampires that I belonged to, two males and one female. I never really referred to them as men and women, or even as human beings. They were not even people to me. They were things, horrible creatures that owned me. I was theirs, and I had no choice in the matter. I was only alive to serve their needs. And when I had finished serving their purposes, I knew I would either be turned into one of them or be dead. If I had my choice though, which I didn’t, I would choose the dead part. I didn’t want to be like them in any way. Living a lifetime (or even longer) like they did disgusted me.

The two males were Jack and Nathan, pretty ordinary names as far as names go. The female was Carrie, which brought back associations to horror movies of which she could definitely have been a part. I guess they were all human once, but it was such a long time ago, way before I came into the picture. It was hard for me to even think about them being human once upon a time. They were so far from it now. Of course, they looked human in most ways.

Nathan was tall and on the muscular side. He looked powerful, and being a vampire made him stronger. It was all the blood that did it. There was something about the all-blood diet that was good for their bodies. It strengthened them in a way I couldn’t understand. It fed into their physiology. Nathan had dark brown hair and fairly nice defined features when they weren’t screwed up into a scowl. I wouldn’t call him handsome, but he must have been at least average in his real life. Now however, he was gruesome. It was the eyes that did it. They were terrifying, bright white, with no hint of color, except for the pupils, a small pinpoint of black in the centre. His eyes almost seemed to glow, they were so bright. It made me shudder just to look into them.

Nathan was the quietest of the three of them. But his quietness was of the deadly kind. He was the type that you didn’t want to cross. Even when he was truly alive, I could tell he had been dangerous. He just had that manner about him—threatening, opposing. Now, as a vampire, he showed no hint of feeling, but you could see how deadly he was just looking at him. He was terrifying.

Jack was of slighter build. He was short and I think he must have been stocky when he was alive. His skin hung from his frame now, but there was no fat on him. How could there be when he only existed on blood. Where were the calories in that? Jack must have been in his late 40’s when he was taken. He was slightly balding. It seemed that vampires carried over most of their original physical characteristics into their new life. Maybe even part of their personalities. Jack was always hanging back, deferring to whatever Nathan or Carrie said. He was like a simpering idiot, a little troll of a man (or vampire in his case.) His eyes were shockingly white too.

The female vampire, Carrie, was not attractive at all. She must have been quite plain in real life. Now she only seemed hideous to me. Her black hair hung always untidily down her back. She looked like a wrinkled old witch. I don’t know how old she was when she was taken, but what she had turned into as a vampire did not give her any redeeming features. The all white eyes only added to her horrifying look.

Carrie’s personality was the worst of the three. She was always agitated and flitting around about something. She never stood up straight, but was constantly in a crouching pose, ready to strike at any small annoyance or grievance. No doubt about it, with her temperament, she was the deadliest of the three, at least for me. The bad part about it was that she didn’t like me. I was on the top of her ‘hate list’. She only tolerated having me around because I was useful to her—and because Nathan was around. Nathan definitely was the ‘alpha’ in this group. What he said went and Nathan wanted to keep me for some reason.

The vampires only lived to serve themselves. They were very selfish creatures, and only their bloodlust was important to them. It ruled them. If you could say they had a weakness that would be it. But most of the other myths and legends about vampires that you have probably heard about in books and movies are untrue. Although they live a very long life, if the conditions are right (like they don’t have enough blood to drink) they could die. And they can be killed too. That is why they were very careful not to be detected by the humans in the outside world. Humans would track them down and burn them, like in the old times with the witches at Salem. They could also be staked. A wooden stake through the heart did wonders in ending their lives.

I guess it wasn’t really their fault either that they were vampires. They couldn’t help what they were or what they had become. They hadn’t chosen this life either. They had been the unwilling victims of other vampires. But it still didn’t mean that they should exist—or should keep on existing. I had no compassion for them. What they did to real people was totally wrong—and horrible—and disgusting!

I shifted my feet again as my calves were starting to cramp up, a reaction to the uncomfortable high heels. I caught a glimpse of someone moving down the street. The shadowy figure was coming towards me. Oh no! I really didn’t want to have to do this again. I didn’t want to be a part of this poor person’s death. I didn’t really care who it was, good or bad. I knew I was going to be a part of their murder and I hated myself for it. But I had no choice. It was either this ‘bad’ person or me. Call me weak, but I was just trying to stay alive a little bit longer. And I was scared of the consequences if I chose not to do as the vampires asked. I really didn’t want to become a vampire too, so I chose to stay human—for now.

It had been that way for a long time, although this prostitute thing was a fairly new strategy for me. Nathan thought it up because I was getting too old to lure people the way I had done in the past. When I was younger it was easier because I didn’t really understand what I was doing. They kept the killing part away from me, thinking (rightly) that I would be so traumatized that I couldn’t play my part convincingly. Back then, when I was little, all I had to do was look lost and innocent, then lead the person to a chosen hiding spot. It always worked. Someone would always try to help a poor, lost child—or try to take advantage of it, which happened more times than not in the bad neighborhoods I was asked to frequent.

That play-act started when I was seven. That was when the vampires killed my parents and took me. I barely remember it now. I had been driving with my parents in the car and we had broken down on the roadside next to wooded area near an old dilapidated barn. I remember we had been heading to see some relatives out west (I’m not even sure who they were)—and we were lost on a lonely road in the backwoods of northern Ontario. It was a cloudy night so no stars or moonlight shone through the trees to break the darkness. My father got out of the car to look under the hood. He was no mechanic so he just stood there shining a feeble flashlight at all the machine works, not knowing what to do. My mother was in the front seat looking worried and I was in the back. My father hadn’t been outside very long. I was playing with my doll and humming to myself when I heard a muffled scream. I looked up to see my mother being dragged out the driver’s side door by something. I couldn’t quite see what it was because it was so dark. I sat staring with my doll still clutched in my arms. There were strange gurgling noises outside, but I didn’t know what was going on. I called softly Mother? but no-one answered. I must have sat rigid for about five minutes before my first low sobs started. I was so scared, I couldn’t help myself. That small noise caught the attention of the vampires. But they had already drunk their fill of blood from my mother and father so they weren’t interested in killing me right then. I wouldn’t have made much of a meal for them anyways, I was so small. I heard their whispers in the dark, which stopped my noisy sobs, although I could feel the hot tears still running down my face. Then the female vampire, Carrie, peered at me through the back window and I screamed. I still remember how she looked, the grizzled grey, wrinkled face all covered in blood, her bright white eyes shining piercingly at me. I must have fainted or gone into shock because the next thing I remembered was waking up in the hayloft of the old barn, with sharp strands of hay digging into me.

It was Nathan who got the idea to use me. I would become their vamp, that’s what they called me, a vamp to lure unsuspecting victims to them to increase their kill-ratio. Nathan was nothing if not smart. The vampires used anything they could to increase their bloodthirsty advantage, and in this case it was me. And that was what my life had been like ever since. I lived only to do their dirty work. Of course, they didn’t treat me too badly. They needed me healthy so they fed me well. They didn’t abuse me either, although they could have. I guess they were afraid that if they beat me and I was to bleed in front of them, they wouldn’t be able to control themselves and they would lose their meal-ticket. I was generally left to myself during the day. Mostly I was ignored until they needed my services. But at night, once a week, that was when they put me to work.

The hollow clock-clock-clock of the man’s footsteps was getting closer. He even shuffled a bit. I still couldn’t quite see his face. It was too dim in the street. The only light came from the streetlamp I was standing under. He was just a hunched figure in some over-sized coat that meandered towards me. He was obviously drunk. Closer now, I could hear his loud uneven breathing. He coughed. All his human traits, even the bad ones, came through as he approached.

This way of living was getting to me though. Everyday I had to live with the fact that I was the cause of someone losing their life and dying horribly. I was so upset about what I had to do, I didn’t know if I could play my part anymore. But I straightened up anyways. It was either this poor person or me. I tried to put a smile on my face, but I knew if he looked too closely it would give me away. It was more of a grimace than a smile.

Hey sweetie! the man slurred his words, What are you doing all alone down here?

I didn’t answer, just smiled my unhappy smile. It didn’t stop him from slowly coming closer. He didn’t know his time was limited.

Why don’t you come with me, little lady? We can have some fun away from this awful place.

I could see him clearly now. He really did look wretched. He was wrinkled and sallow looking and his clothes were a mess. He had obviously thrown up on himself at some point in the night, the result of too much liquor. The evidence was messing up the front of his coat. And he smelled bad. It wasn’t only the smell of vomit, but it was the smell of unwashed clothes and body odor too—and booze. It was really like he was part of the scum of the earth. I could tell that if he wasn’t bothering me, he would obviously be up to no good bothering someone else. Probably some innocent girl or some other prostitute.

Although I was trembling, I really couldn’t mind too much what his fate was to be. If it wasn’t me that caused the end of his life, he would probably end up dead in some gutter anyways—either mugged or from drinking too much. At least that was what I was trying to convince myself of. My being here was just going to speed up the time of his death.

So how about it sweetie? He leered in my face.

Sure. This way. I said flatly and I took his arm.

I guided him, almost supporting him in his drunken state, in the opposite direction towards a side alley where I knew the vampires were waiting. He thought we were heading to the small hotel a little ways down the street. But death was waiting for him closer than that. I was almost sick to my stomach. How many more times would I have to do this? How much more could I take?

The glow of the street lamp faded as we approached the off-shoot alley. It was ominously dark down there. The man didn’t complain in any way. He thought he was going to get what he wanted, sex in a heartbeat. He didn’t know doom was staring him in the face.

I stopped at the entrance of the black alley and pushed him a little ways down it towards his fate. His face was a little surprised as he tripped forward and fell on the bricked walkway.

Now, is that any way to treat your boyfriend? He muttered. He didn’t have time to say anything more.

As I knew, they were there. The man didn’t even have time to turn around before they were on him. They were eager for his blood, very thirsty from all their waiting. His high-pitched screech was cut off quickly as Nathan flipped the man’s head back and tore into his throat. The man’s death was instantaneous. Jack and Carrie were tearing away at other parts of his body, ripping away his clothing with their gnarled fingers in their frenzy to get at the man’s blood.

Chalk another one up for me. Job well done. Great work, Valerie! I turned away. I didn’t want to have to witness what I had caused.

I headed back down the street away from the lamp post, towards the only home I knew. I flipped off my high heels and started walking, barefoot. They wouldn’t need me anymore tonight. I welcomed the six mile walk back through the city and through the woods to the house. It gave me a chance to be alone with my thoughts, to berate myself again and again for what I had had to do. I felt like I was just as miserable a creature as they were. Was I really so selfish that I could cause someone’s else’s death to save my own? It was hard to think that way, but how else could I perceive what I had done this night?

It would take them a little while to finish up their meal, and then the vampires would come home and sleep through the rest of the night and probably the next day too. I was free from my horrible tasks for another week or so, until they got hungry again. Then it would be my turn again to be a vamp and sentence someone else to death.

We didn’t live in the old barn anymore. We had a regular house now. It was small and disheveled, but it was better than the barn. The house was a little ways outside the city limits, standing amidst a small clearing in the forest. The thick growth of trees and vegetation shielded it from the side road leading to it. If you didn’t know where to find it, no one would ever suspect the house was even there.

The vampires bought the house and the large plot of wooded area around it not too long after I joined them. The house was paid for by ill-gotten gains, to be sure. Some of the money came from the pockets of their victims. Some of the money was stolen from houses near and far. Some came from vampire sympathizers (and yes, there are many in this cruel world out there—people who want to become immortal vampires themselves). It don’t know where they found those people, but all kinds of people make the world. They were out there. The vampires could have bought a more expensive, luxurious house if they had wanted, but they really had no need of it. For them it was only a secluded, secure place to sleep. The house had really been for my benefit and to keep up a pretense of normal living. They needed me healthy in order to produce the best results for my ‘vamping’.

And the house was actually a good thing for me. It meant better living conditions, with a real kitchen and a bathroom. It also had hydro, which was a plus. I couldn’t see in the dark the way the vampires could. Lighting helped. I also had my own room with a real bed and blankets. Heating also helped. It got very cold in the winter in this part of northern Ontario. The vampires didn’t feel the cold, but I did. Even though the house was old, run-down and secluded, it was my home, at least the only one I really remembered. I retreated to my bedroom whenever I could. It was my sanctuary. I could be alone there.

Jack, Nathan and Carrie didn’t really bother with me unless they needed me to do something for them. As I said, I was their slave. Not only did I vamp for them, I also handled other matters that they really couldn’t do. I cleaned the house. I cooked my meals and did other chores that were difficult for them. Like the shopping. Once a month I was allowed to go into town to the grocery store and buy food. They kept a large amount of money in a jar in the kitchen cupboard. I took a handful of it to the store and bought what I needed. They didn’t care what I ate, as long as it kept me from starving.

I also bought all the clothes we wore. I always dressed in casual jeans and sloppy sweatshirts because they were the most comfortable, except when I was vamping. Then I was required to dress my part—like this time with the tight red dress. When I was little, I had to wear bows in my hair and cute frilly dresses—‘all the better to vamp with, my dear’. The vampires themselves always wore long sleeved dark garments. Although they didn’t burn up in the sun as the legends said, they were sensitive to the strong sun, almost like they were albinos, so they tried to cover up as much as possible. It was another reason they liked northern Ontario. The sun didn’t shine so brightly here. But, in the real world, it really didn’t matter what they wore. No one ever saw them anyways, except just before they died.

The shopping was something I really enjoyed doing, although I was always slightly frightened of all the people. I wasn’t used to being around a lot of people all the time. And the vampires taught me to avoid people. People were dangerous. They might discover our secret, and that would be bad. People were only supposed to be prey, or so I was always told. They were cattle, food for the vampires. So I didn’t talk much when I was out. I didn’t want to get involved too much. One of them might become my next victim. I didn’t want to feel anything for them. But it did feel good to be amongst my own kind sometimes. I wondered how it would feel to live in the real world. I was not so stupid as to think that living with the vampires was a normal way of life. It was just the only way of life I knew.

When I was younger I had tried to run away once or twice. I didn’t get very far. The vampires always caught me and brought me back. They found me easily with their strong sense of smell. They were very attuned to my particular scent, living as we were in such close proximity day to day. And to be sure, I wasn’t very wise in the ways of the world. I didn’t know where I was going or the best way to go. The vampires tried to keep me from learning too much. They tried to keep me ‘in the dark’ so to speak so that I wouldn’t be able to run away. I wasn’t allowed to go to school. And I wasn’t even able to read, although I knew some of the basic letters from when I was little. I had seen books in the stores, but they were a mystery to me. I had also seen T.V.—once or twice when I was in the stores. The moving pictures fascinated me, but I couldn’t stand around long enough to make much sense of what it was all about. The devils of the night, the vampires, were always watching and waiting for me.

The first time I tried to run away, I must have been about ten. I used to cry myself to sleep at nights more often than not. Seeing what I did and doing what was expected of me just overwhelmed me all of a sudden. I decided I couldn’t take it anymore, so I started out early one morning when they were sleeping. I wanted to get as far away as I possibly could before they even knew I was missing. I thought maybe I could find someone who would care enough to take me away from all this, maybe a kindly woman like my mother had been.

I kept to the deep woods and the thick underbrush, fearing open spaces where I could be seen too easily, fearing that they would catch me before I got too far. I had been walking for a long time, hours it seemed, stumbling along and crashing through the bush, when I realized I had no idea where I was. I could only see trees, trees and more trees. I started to get a little panicky. Which way was the right way? And I was so thirsty from all the exertion. I hadn’t thought to bring any provisions along. The trees grew close together and the thick bushes seemed to grab at my hair and clothes every time I moved. I began to get scared of the graying sunlight beneath the trees. I knew there were real monsters in this world (didn’t I live with some of them every day) and now I thought they might be coming at me from every direction. Everything looked ominous. And it was so confusing not knowing which direction was which. I was getting tired too. I wasn’t used to so much exercise. Generally, I stayed in the house all day. I wasn’t allowed to play outside when they couldn’t watch me.

I stumbled around in the woods getting more and more tired and scared, but I didn’t want to give up. I didn’t want to go back to the vampires. The movement of some small forest creature startled me and I screamed. That did it. I was too scared to go on. The monsters would surely get me. I remember starting to cry and then just sitting down in the dirt underneath the swaying branches of a large birch tree. I must have stayed there for hours, too afraid and too tired to move, the dark drawing ever closer.

The vampires found me as soon as the sun was really down. My scent trail lead them straight to me. I could tell they were upset at me when they picked me up and brought me back to the house. There were a lot of angry hisses and whispering going on that I didn’t hear completely. I did hear, however, that Carrie thought it would be too much trouble and too big of a risk to keep me any longer. She wanted to end my life right then and there. All of them lived in constant fear of being discovered. What that would mean to them, I didn’t know. But Jack and Nathan thought I could still be useful and still be controlled. Since it was two against one (to my benefit), I was allowed to live.

My punishment was being locked in the house for about six months (except, of course, for my vamping duties). I wasn’t allowed to stick so much as my big toe out of doors. My imprisonment probably would have continued if they hadn’t noticed that my health was suffering for it. Unlike them, I needed fresh air and sunlight to be a healthy human child. So after six months, they let me outdoors again, but only when they were awake to watch me from the windows.

I took my punishment calmly, because my first escape attempt had left me extremely frightened. The hours spent lost in the woods was a terrifying memory, and then hearing how easily they thought of killing me also scared me. I had seen enough death to know what it was, even at my young age. I didn’t want what they did to the people I vamped to happen to me. So for a long time I was good and didn’t think of escape again.

I think I was about twelve when I started to think of escaping again. Up until then I had been luring people with my ‘lost child’ ploy. But now I was beginning to be too old for that to work successfully. Nathan thought up a new plan. I was to pretend