Resurrection is for the Unbelievers
By
Part Eight
All Previous Disclaimers Apply
Razz Me: shaych3@yahoo.com
~Chapter Fifteen~
The scent of two heavily creamed caramel lattes was driving Kate nearly bonkers. Balancing the tray on one hand, she fumbled with her keys until she got the door open. As she entered her apartment, she called out, “I’m back.”
From the bathroom she heard, “And you have coffee.” The redhead appeared in the doorway wearing nothing but a towel and a smile.
I am so glad I sent Dersk home. Kate could not help but stare. Elizabeth was a beautiful woman and that was only enhanced by the way her damp hair fell around the creamy flesh of her toned shoulders. Since when am I attracted to women? Elizabeth cocked her head and smiled.
“Is one of those for me?” she purred softly.
Since about now, I guess. Licking her lips, Kate set the tray on the table and said, “Yeah. It’s something to go with breakfast. Have you eaten yet?”
“Naw, my clothes were too scungy to go hunting.”
Kate’s eyebrow shot up rapidly. Pursing her lips she said, “You were welcome to my food, Doc.”
The redhead sauntered into the room. Shrugging, she said, “I know, but – why should I bother when I can take a bite outta crime?” The smile on her face was teasing, predatory and followed by a quick snap of her teeth as she pantomimed the action.
“Well for one, it’s not good for your symbiote.” Kate went into the kitchen, opened the fridge and pulled out a package of steak.
“My what?” Elizabeth leaned against the wall and watched as Kate began to heat a pan. Using a razor sharp knife, the detective cut the meat into strips and began to fry it. Handfuls of spices and dashes of various liquids added to the scent of cooking meat, creating a zesty aroma that had both women’s mouths watering.
Kate turned to get something from the refrigerator and Elizabeth reached out and snatched a piece of cooking meat from the pan. The detective smiled but said nothing.
“Your symbiote – I take it that you didn’t read the book, either?” Tossing her hair back away from her face as she hunted for various ingredients, Kate began to pull out a variety of items. Another pan was put on the stove, a pat of butter added and then several handfuls of fresh spinach and other leafy veggies were tossed in and then drizzled with olive oil.
Elizabeth watched with interest. “You know your stuff,” she said.
Shrugging, Kate said, “Eh, you spend two weeks watching nothing but FoodTV and see what you learn.”
The redhead laughed. “Okay, so book?”
“On the coffee table. I’m tempted to say RTFM, but I won’t.” Kate grinned. “Go on, this will take a little longer before its ready.”
Mouthing, “RTFM”, Elizabeth made her way back to the couch and sat. Shortly, she was thumbing through the book.
Kate watched her, smiling when the redhead would screw up her face in concentration as she worked through an obscure paragraph.
Once everything was simmering, she stepped away from the stove and hurriedly found a clean t-shirt and a pair of sweats.
“Hey Doc, heads up!” she called as she threw the clothes at her guest.
The detective was dully impressed with Elizabeth’s reactions. Turning to give the other woman some privacy, she waited until her guest said, “Thanks. I’m decent now.”
“Good. Learning anything out of that book? I know I did.”
Elizabeth set the tome aside and wandered back toward the kitchenette. Leaning against the wall again, she crossed her arms and said, “So – what am I then? Some kind of alien? A demonic life form? Am I evil or good?”
Pulling their breakfast from the stove, Kate said, “There are plates in that cupboard. And, near as I can tell – I haven’t a clue. Well, you’re however you want to be – though if you don’t eat, you’re going to drive the Tos symbiote insane and then, yes, I’d say you would be evil.” The words coming out of her mouth felt so strange. It was like chewing peach-grape gum and wondering what happened to the fuzz.
“All right, Professor Dick – what else can you tell this resurrected vampire?” The sat at the table as Kate served breakfast.
The detective made a face. “Kate, Elizabeth. I think we can skip the nicknames for a while. And you’re not a vampire. Not in the traditional sense, anyway.”
“Yeah, I’m a … what’d Wainright call it … a ‘vampath’? Is that an actual word or did he get very drunk on some bad sherry and make it up?”
Kate laughed as she sat. “I’m inclined to believe he made it up. But then – you never know. Those Watcher’s Council folks are a pretty odd bunch. In any event, what matters is this – you are not a blood sucking, demon controlled evil entity that deserves to be beheaded, staked or left out in the sun. Rather, you’re more like…. Well, the closest I can figure is the relationship between plants and people. We need oxygen to breathe and plants need carbon dioxide to grow.”
“Odd analogy, but I think I’m following you,” Elizabeth said as she bit into a piece of meat and vegetable. It was lovely. Spicy, sweet and bursting with flavor – a sensation that had become somewhat distasteful as what usually went into her mouth was blood, dirt and sweat. “This is good.”
“Thanks.”
“Okay,” Elizabeth said after a few more bites. “So this symbiote … the Tos, as the book calls it, is not from this um…”
“Dimension – yeah, I know. But after you’ve seen what I have, the whole idea of alternate realities begins to make a whole lot of sense.” Kate took a drink of her latte and sighed. “Honestly, what you need to be concerned with is taking care of yourself. From the way you looked when I found you, you weren’t.”
Elizabeth flushed. “Well, it was cheaper…”
Putting he fork down, Kate gave the vampath a long, steady look. “You were on a road that could have landed you in a situation where I would have had to kill you, Elizabeth.”
The other woman shrugged. “Like that’s not a threat I haven’t heard before. Or lived before.”
The detective rested her elbows on the table and sighed. Balancing her chin on her folded hands, she said, “But this time, I mean it.” She spoke softly, but her eyes were diamond hard. “Believe me when I say that I would have no trouble putting you down, Elizabeth.”
“You would try,” the vampath said. “But you would fail.” There was a dark edge to Elizabeth’s tone. She leaned forward and locked her gaze with Kate’s. “You’re only human. Whatever name you call me matters not. Vampire or vampath, they both have the same thing in common – the very inhumanity of the term. I am not mortal, Kate Lockley.”
Before the detective could draw a breath, she found herself caught in a steel grip. One of Elizabeth’s arms was locked around her head while the other pressed her arms into the table.
Fear trickled through her as she fought not to struggle. From what she had read, she knew that part of this was the symbiote testing Elizabeth’s nature and part of this was the learned behavior of a human who had been a vampire.
Elizabeth smelled the detective’s alarm and smiled. It was heady, the power that she wielded. Like a child with a toy sword, she strutted about, ready to strike anything that jumped from the shadows and yelled “Boo!”
Licking her lips, the vampath allowed her fangs to grow. “Shall I drink of thee, Detective? Wilt thy heart flutter against my lips, or wilt thou shudder willingly as my lips caress thy throat?”
“Don’t,” Kate said softly.
“Don’t what, Detective? Stop, start? What do you want from me, Kate?” Elizabeth purred. Leaning closer, she brushed her cheek against the detective’s. “I can feel you – it’s like a pulse only deeper. Grinding in my gut, it thrums out the message of your feelings, Detective. Would you like to know what they tell me?”
Kate nearly whimpered as Elizabeth’s teeth grazed her neck.
The almost sound, felt more than heard, was like a bucket of cold water to the vampath. Just before her teeth pierced the detective’s skin, she stopped. Pressing her lips to the spot, she left a tender kiss.
Then, before Kate could speak, she was gone.
%%%
Elizabeth ran. Barefooted, dressed in borrowed clothes, she ran as if Iscariot himself was after her. Her feet barely touched the ground. As soon as she could, she left the street to fly from building to building, putting her vampathic strength and agility to its utmost test. She didn’t stop until she reached her hotel room, and once inside, she barricaded the door and dove into her bed, whimpering and shuddering.
The Tos, it seemed, was nearly as powerful in its hunger as the demon ever was. Only instead of blood, it craved emotion – any emotion. The lust that she had felt flickering in the detective had set the symbiote’s need aflame. Her control, shaky and hard won, had nearly vanished.
She had almost given in, and taken what she wanted from Kate. Whether the detective would have ended up dead, or lying beneath her, moaning in ecstasy made no difference – it would have been the death of any kind of friendship, and Elizabeth was rapidly growing to like the pretty detective.
“I can’t see her. I can’t be around her – I’m not safe.” I can still hunt, but I’ll have to make sure I supplement with real food. I’ll just… work harder. The thought crossed her mind to steal from her victims, but that was nearly as distasteful as feeding off an innocent.
“I’ll get another job.”
~Chapter Sixteen~
Kate stared at the vacant spot at the kitchen table where Elizabeth had sat. The vampath’s meal was half eaten. Her neck tingled. Actually, it burned and sent a tingling rush of sensation over her body that was almost like an orgasm.
The detective was almost afraid to touch it. If she did, that would make what she was feeling real.
But it’s not. You know that. You RTFM. Read the fucking manual – cover to cover, front to back and then started all over again. You know that it was the symbiote. The Tos made you feel this way, it’s not you, and it’s certainly not Elizabeth.
That actually hurt. A tiny, sharp prick of pain that started in her gut and traveled up into the region near her heart and left her briefly wondering if she was attractive to anything that was human.
“Oh get over yourself, Kate. It’s not like you’re a lesbian. That’s Willow’s bag, not yours.” Standing, she swept away the leavings of breakfast. The apartment got a serious cleaning.
In the bathroom, she found Elizabeth’s clothes. Half tempted to throw them out; instead, she put them into her laundry bin. Somehow, she would see that they were returned.
After that, she shut out the light, crawled into bed and slept.
%%%
Elizabeth never forgot to eat. Sometimes it was only one real meal a day, but she never again let her symbiote starve. She also became more picky about trolling, choosing to stick with those who truly deserved to be removed from society.
None were left dead. Not even the one she found abusing his son in the back of a ratty old van. To the child, she gave the gift of no memory. It was an ability she had perfected. It was easy to convince the mind of her victims that she was just a figment of their imagination.
The boy came to her willingly when she offered to take his suffering from him.
That was when she learned of another aspect of the Tos. The manual had mentioned something about some vampaths taking on the suffering of others, not as food but as a way to relieve that pain.
Wainright had said that it was akin to the way some doctors and nurses seemed to be able to calm patients with a look, a touch or the sound of their voice.
Elizabeth found that it was more like swallowing a tennis ball filled with razorblades, needles and rusty nails. Yet she would not have denied the boy the chance to grow up free of the evil his father had perpetrated.
She was sick for a week afterward.
%%%
As it turned out, there was an exchange of clothes. Dersk was able to find Elizabeth by the sheer novelty of walking into a bar one night and spotting her behind the counter, serving cheap beer and watered whiskey to the rowdy clientele. With that information in hand, Kate had been able to get the half-demon to take Elizabeth her cleaned things.
It was no surprise that the vampath took advantage of the situation to return Kate’s things via the same messenger.