The Vampire De Sade

By Mary Ann Mitchell

Since Sade lost his beloved niece to zombie vampires, he has kept his emotions in check. But in his sleep of death what dreams may come? Dreams of Lilliana, his niece... Dreams driven by spells cast by the Voudou Queen Marie Laveau.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mary Ann Mitchell
• Release date: Jun 9, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476210193

Mary Ann Mitchell

Mary Ann Mitchell has published 11 books. Her first book, Drawn to the Grave, was a final nomination for the Bram Stoker Award and won the International Horror Guild Award. She held officer positions with the Horror Writers Association and with the Northern California Sisters in Crime organization. She is now making her books available as e-books.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Do you dream, Uncle? The child was fair, with long hair streaming down her slight shoulders. Her eyes were wide and expectant, waiting for her uncle’s answer. She had flung her bedclothes away and grabbed the soft cotton of her uncle’s shirt.

I’m free when I sleep, Liliana. Witches, wolves, and spirits don’t chase me the way they do you. No longer do I dream.

You almost sound sad about that, Uncle. Why would you miss such horrible ogres?

I don’t. Liliana, I miss you. No one else means as much to me as you do.

But I’m here, Uncle, sitting upon your lap. How can you miss me when I am so close to you? The child tilted her head to the side and strands of hair fell over one eye.

Uncle Louis tried to squeeze her arm, but no matter how much pressure his hands exerted, he couldn’t feel his niece’s soft flesh. Liliana didn’t cry out in pain. She sat quietly waiting for an answer.

I never dream, he repeated. I never dream because I’m dead.

Will I someday be dead like you, Uncle?

Many pray for a different kind of death than mine.

But will I die, and can I spend forever with you?

His hand sought the smoothness of her cheek, and surprisingly found the softness beneath his fingertips. He cupped her chin. Her pale eyes looked into his with great love.

I would share all that I have with you, Liliana. Even death.

Will you ever regret it, Uncle?

There is nothing that I regret. When I’ve taken, it has been because I wanted possession. What I’ve cast off, I’ve cast off in boredom. Each moment is fed its own needs, and I do not beg forgiveness for any of my desires.

Will I grow old like you before I die?

Sade laughed and hugged the child to his body.

I never will be old and neither will you. He brushed her blonde hair off her shoulder, revealing her slender, delicate neck. He wrapped his hand around her neck and felt her pulse against his flesh. Her neck was so tiny that he thought of the chickens he had seen his servants kill. The chickens squawked just before the servants so easily wrung their necks. His hand tightened on the child’s neck but she did not make a sound, did not fight him.

As a joke Liliana stuck out her tongue, rolled her eyes, and made believe he was really choking her.

Don’t mock me, Liliana, Sade said.

She pulled free from his grip and rose up in his lap and kissed his cheek. His skin burned where her lips had been.

You must go back to sleep, Liliana.

I can’t sleep after those horrible nightmares. Tell me a story. A nice story where princesses meet fairies and bad men don’t exist.

I wish you were a princess, my little dumpling.

Would you be my knight and slay all the bogeymen and dragons for me?

Ah, yes. Especially the ones that make my princess wake crying in the middle of the night. I’d chop off their heads and bury their bodies deep in the ground.

And what would you do with the heads, Uncle?

Burn them to ash, so that they couldn’t return and bother you ever again.

The little girl’s fingers touched his lips, outlining the shape.

That tickles, Liliana. He laughed and playfully attempted to bite her fingers.

What will you do with my head, Uncle? Her face looked as though it were made of stone. The eyes didn’t blink, the nose didn’t twitch, and the lips were hardened into double lines.

Your head is attached to your shoulders. Right where it belongs.

What did you do with my head? Her lips barely shaped the words, but he clearly understood what she said.

I don’t know what you’re talking about, child. It’s late, and you are tired. He tried to lay her back on the silk sheets, but he couldn’t budge her. What are you doing, Liliana? Do you want me to call your grandmother?

Grandma, she sung out.

Shhh! She doesn’t like me visiting you.

She didn’t come when I cried out in fear. You did. She can’t complain about that.

Yes, she can. Please, lie down and go back to sleep and I’ll promise to bring home a special gift for you.

Will you make me whole again?

Stop this silliness and go to sleep.

He stood, but she knelt and grabbed onto his forearms.

Don’t leave me, Uncle. I’m afraid of the dark. Afraid of the beasts that will come to rip me apart.

They won’t come again, Liliana.

How do you know?

Because you are much older when the insane vampires rip you apart.

Suddenly Sade stood in an old cemetery. He yelled out Liliana’s name several times.

"Ma petite chère!"

"Mon enfant!"

Tilted crosses surrounded him. He couldn’t walk without tripping over twigs and bark. The soil smelled of age and decay. He tripped and fell to the ground. A hand reached out of the soil, and he tried to take hold, but a wind rose that swirled the leaves and blocked his view. His hands were numb. They felt nothing, but his knees felt the twigs and branches biting into them. He flung his body forward in a last attempt to find Liliana.

Chapter 2

The lid of Sade’s coffin gave way under his strength. He sat peering around an ancient room, recalling that he had been sleeping in a castle ruin. Empty candlesticks sat on a rotting bureau. Stripped of paint and unused for a century, the bureau looked frail, barely able to bear the weight of bronze candlesticks. Dust covered everything, including the ornate casket he had borrowed from the cemetery in the back of the castle. He had emptied the casket of its contents and easily carried it up the winding staircase to the only bedroom still whole.

He had chosen to hide here from dreams that wouldn’t go away. Maybe a change of location or a quieter place to rest might submerge the devils that brought his nightmares.

He had begun dreaming three months ago, and knowing that this was supposed to be impossible, he had decided to tell no one. Vampires didn’t dream when they lay dead in their coffins. That was the only time they could be completely at rest. But something had changed for him.

He heard the wind whistle through the drafty hallway. The walls of the castle were pockmarked with holes, and the smell of the flowers and pollen drifted freely throughout the building. Far better than the decay he had smelled in his dream.

He leaped from the casket and walked around the bedroom. A giant canopy stretched across the bare bones of a bed, the mattress gone and the frame staunchly waiting. The posts were decoratively carved with faces that could have come from nightmares, but none as terrifying as his. The stone floor felt cold against his bare feet.

The night had arrived to rescue him from his sleep. He felt more tired than usual during the day and more anxious at night. Sleep now would only come during the day, and the night never brought rest anymore.

He tried to blot out her name, but it echoed inside his head.

Liliana.

His niece, the daughter of his wife’s sister. His niece, only his niece.

He had transformed her into a vampire while she was in her teens. A beautiful, charming girl that had never turned twenty. Her final death had come in an old cemetery where mutant vampires had torn her body apart.

But that had been years ago and in a different country. He wasn’t in the United States anymore. He was back in France, back in his homeland, where the soil kept him alive.

He looked at the casket and saw mildew spreading upwards along one side of the rare hardwood. He brushed it off with one hand, and the black flecks stuck to his fingers. He wiped his hand off on the curtain attached to the canopy, and as he did the curtain slipped away and settled in his hand. He raised the material to his nose to catch a scent, but the material was dank and stuffy with age.

Liliana.

He remembered her perfume, her laugh, her voice, and the touch of her hand.

He missed her but didn’t want her to return. It was better that she was gone and couldn’t remind him of his selfishness.

Liliana, I’m sorry. Now go away. Spare your uncle the pain of seeing you again.

He spun toward the doorway. Tonight he would walk the forest barefoot, prowling for blood, settling for animal blood, since he was so far away from any townspeople. And then he would climb into this borrowed coffin and perhaps even pray for freedom from the dreams.

As he entered the hallway, the whistle of the wind increased, and his cotton shirt rustled.

He had let his hair grow long, and now he pulled it back and tied it with a leather string that he kept in his shirt pocket. He needed to face the night, see the stars, bring death to one of God’s creatures.

A few paintings hung on the walls, most with varying degrees of water damage, but he could still make out the features of most of the subjects. Haughty people who believed they’d never die. Noblemen glancing at Sade as if he were a peasant. Overdressed women smiling their sweet invitations.

Liliana.

He grabbed the closest portrait and broke it across his left knee, letting the pieces fall to the stone floor.

With determination, he staggered down the stairs, brushed the cobwebs from the banisters, and forced the front door open.

Chapter 3

Marie hadn’t seen Sade for months and was damn happy about it. What the hell brought him to mind? she wondered while spilling candle wax on the flesh of a very rotund male. The client panted like a dog and moaned loudly. A bit overwrought, she thought. Would she be able to bite through those double chins to find his neck? Perhaps she would go hungry.

On my nipples. On my nipples, the client urged her.

She acquiesced, bringing the flame closer, almost touching his nipple with the fire.

Louis Sade would quickly get bored with this beast that lay under her. Louis Sade. Could she actually miss him? Scary thought, she decided.

"Yes, maîtresse. I’ll do whatever you say. Please don’t set me on fire."

Not a bad idea, she thought. Only, the smell and smoke would attract too much attention here in the middle of Paris. Her neighbors would be knocking on her door, and the fire department would follow. Hell, this kind of thing was much better centuries ago, when common folk were loath to interfere in the affairs of the high-born. Even though she herself hadn’t been born to the nobility, she had seen to it that her firstborn daughter married into nobility.

Ugh! she thought. The Marquis de Sade. Was it worth giving up one’s firstborn to a man like Sade to ensure a noble name for her grandchildren?

"Oh, maîtresse, the straps are hurting my wrists," her client cried out.

Hurting his wrists? She had purposefully bought the furry-lined straps for wimps like this fool.

Marie reached up to her client’s neck and attempted to lift the folds of flesh that covered his neck and hid his blood vessels.

"Your touch, maîtresse, is heavenly. I would do anything and suffer anything for you." He pursed his lips, not for a kiss, but to concentrate on the sound of her voice.

A slight prick on the neck to mark you as mine is all I require, little one.

The client had asked for the nickname little one to be used whenever she addressed him. Sometimes Marie thought feeding might be easier if she just went down near the docks, found the loneliest corner, and jumped the first human to come along. Then she could simply roll the body into the Seine and let the gendarmes scratch their heads in dismay. A bloodless corpse. What would the papers make of that? She giggled.

"Maîtresse, do not laugh at me. I yearn to be yours in every way. Brand me with your initials, lure me into your dark world, and keep me there forever."

This one was such a novice. He was far too melodramatic, not at all a natural to the sado/masochist scene. He took pleasure from the fantasy and not truly from the pain. Perhaps she should not permit him to return.

"Maîtresse, have I angered you? Have I offended you with my talk? Speak to me, maîtresse."

Marie let go of his sweaty flesh and reached under the bed, drawing a many-tongued whip from beneath it. She stood and wielded the whip over her head, lashing her client’s flesh mercilessly. His cries made her ears ring. Pain no longer a fantasy, he reacted with true fear, giving her great pleasure.

Ask me for more, my little one. Show that you are worthy to lie in my bed.

Tears crept out from under his blindfold. His body shivered, and his flesh stank.

Beg, my little one. Beg like the baby you are. The whip crested above her head then sank into the fatty flesh resting upon the bed.

Speak the words I want to hear, she shrieked.

More, he cried. "I’ve been bad and need more punishment. I beg you, maîtresse, cleanse me."

I don’t know what sins you have committed and don’t want to hear your tedious recitation. I am no priestess granting absolution. I’m the devil meting out justice.

Whoever you are, I ask that you make me bleed for what I’ve done. Make me feel the pain I’ve caused others.

This may turn out to be more pleasurable than I had anticipated, she thought, seeing her client’s flesh percolate blood from the newly opened gashes she had made.

Hor che’è tempo di dormire

dormi figlio e non vagire

perché tempo ancor verrá

che vagir bisognerá

Deh ben mio deh cor mio

fa la ninna ninna na.

Chiudi quei lumi divini

come fan gl’altri bambini

perché tosto oscuro velo

priverà di lume il cielo.

Deh ben mio deh cor mio

fa la ninna ninna na.

Now it’s time to slumber,

sleep my child, don’t cry.

For the time will come

for weeping, by and by.

Oh my love, oh my dear heart,

sing lulla-lullaby.

Close those heavenly eyes,

as other children do,

for soon a dark veil

will cover the sky.

Oh my love, oh my dear heart,

sing lulla-lullaby.

Canzonetta spirituale sopra la nanna

Hor ch’è tempo di dormire

Tarquinio Merula (1594-1665)

Chapter 4

Liliana’s giggles turned to hiccups. Sade reached up to lift Liliana off the carousel. She had already gone around three times and cried out for more.

"You’re having too much fun, ma chère. Your grandmother will have my head if I bring you back a dizzy little girl."

One more time. Please, she begged through her hiccups.

Sade laughed and hugged Liliana close. Her legs wriggled with glee, and her hands kept pointing toward the silver and blue wooden horse she had been riding.

We must go home now, but tonight, after everyone is asleep, I’ll sneak you a second dessert. He winked at her, but she wouldn’t be turned away from the carousel that easily.

I’ll be asleep, Uncle. How can I eat a second dessert if I’m asleep?

You’ll have it for the morning.

She shook her head. No, Gigi will eat it.

I will banish Gigi to the backyard.

No, don’t do that, she may get lost. Besides, she always sleeps with me. She would be very lonely.

And so would you, I suppose.

A blush flushed her young cheeks. Her hiccups had disappeared.

So you must find a way to get the dessert to me before I go to sleep.

Now what plot could I devise to throw all the others off my trail while I pay a visit to your room?

Just tell them you wish to say good-night to me, silly. Grandma allows you to say good-night to me when she’s in a good mood.

And how can we be sure that she’ll be in a good mood?

I’ll be the best little granddaughter she has. I’ll eat everything on my plate and go to bed without a fuss.

Then we should be giving you a second dessert every night, if that would make you so easy to live with.

The skies grew dark. A wind pierced their summer clothing.

Uncle, why is it so cold?

Lightening and thunder came from the sky.

Liliana hid her face against Sade’s shoulder.

"Don’t be frightened, ma chère. It is merely a summer storm. It will go as quickly as it came."

It’s not just a storm. Someone is very angry at us.

Your grandmother would never frighten her favorite grandchild.

Not Grandma, someone I don’t know. She hates us, but I don’t know why.

Sade, too, sensed the presence of another.

"Think of tonight, ma chère, and the dessert. Before you know it, we will be home."

The clouds burst open with rain. It soaked their clothes and blinded their eyes.

I can’t see anything, Uncle, she cried. Are you still here with me?

Of course I am. Don’t you feel my arms about you?

"I feel