Marcilla Pt. 03: A Job For You

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[For those who came in late:

In Part One (“A Modern Fantasy”), Marcilla was picked up by a mysterious entity in the guise of a middle aged man, who told her to turn an English girl called Enid. In the process of turning her, Marcilla fell in love with Enid.

In Part Two (“The Beginning”), Marcilla told Enid of how she was herself turned, as an eighteen year old in Styria in 1698.

We now pick up the story.]

______________________________________________

MARCILLA:

“You’re just trying too hard,” I said.

Enid huffed in frustration. Her face was flushed with effort and her straggly hair was plastered across her brow. “I’ll never be able to bloody do this.”

“Of course you will.” I looked at her, standing by the door, and pointed to the window. “You don’t have to hold your breath and will yourself to move there. All you have to do is feel yourself there. Let’s try it once more.”

Enid tried. She closed her eyes tight, clenched her fists, and thrust her head forward on her shoulders. Of course nothing happened. She stayed right where she was, with her back to the door.

I sighed. “Let’s take a break from that for today. We can start learning about wards again and how to beat them.”

“When you say ‘we’, you really mean ‘you,’ and we both know it.” Enid shook her head angrily. “It’s never going to work, Marcilla. I’m thick as two short planks. You’ll never be able to teach me anything.”

I got up from the chair by the little side table and walked to her. “Enid? Look at me.” Putting my finger under her chin, I tilted her head back until her eyes were looking into mine. They were shimmering with frustrated tears. I wanted to kiss those tears away. “You. Will. Be. Able. To. Learn. All. Of. This. I promise you.”

“But it’s not working!” Enid rubbed at her eyes angrily. “You do it so effortlessly and I can’t any of it, at all.”

“I’ve had over three centuries of practice,” I said, and kissed her forehead. “Forget it for now. Let’s talk about wards for a bit.” I drew her by the hand to the bed and we sat down side by side. “Now, how do we recognise a blood ward?”

She actually remembered what I’d told her about that, and I congratulated her with another kiss. “But,” she said, “why do I have to learn all this, I still don’t understand. You told me yourself that nobody thinks we exist anymore.”

“No.” I held up a hand. “I did not say that. I said almost nobody. There’s a difference. Hunters still exist, even though they’re so few we could go generations without meeting one, and they’re still dangerous. No, more dangerous than ever, since they have modern technology behind them. You need to know how to recognise and fight them.” I fell silent a minute. “I’ve had a few close runs with Hunters and it was only by good fortune that I survived some of those times.”

“They’ll have an easy time with me,” she muttered. “I’m stupid and useless.”

“You are not stupid and you are not useless.” I put my arm around her shoulders and immediately noticed how stiff her muscles were. She was under far more stress than she herself probably realised. “Let’s go soak in the tub,” I said. “I’ll put on the hot water. You need to relax.”

The tub was a welcome surprise. This hotel was old and the rooms small, but it had been converted from what had once been a mansion and though they’d broken up the big halls into smaller rooms, ours was connected with one of the old bathrooms, which was gigantic — almost as large as the bedroom itself — and had a huge bathtub set into a raised platform, not the tiny shower cubicle I’d been expecting.

We’d been cycling far too long, living out in the open far too long, and, though Enid was treating it all as a great adventure, I’d been more than glad to take a couple of days off in civilisation when the opportunity arose. A soak in a hot tub, a real bed, and sleep through the day from, well, not dawn, but at least mid-morning, to nightfall! What luxury!

“I? You’ve been doing all the work.” Enid pulled a face at me. “If anyone needs to relax, it’s you.”

“All right, we both need to relax. I admit it!” I went into the bathroom and turned on the hot tap, and as the tub filled, poured in both the tiny packets of complimentary bath salts I’d found in the bathroom cabinet. “Take your clothes off and get in here.”

The bathtub was nice and foaming pink with the salts when I slid in, lifted Enid on my lap, and positioned her so she was sitting between my thighs, her head against my shoulder and her back pressed against my breasts. I rubbed her shoulders and arms.

She made a noise like a contented cat. I chuckled.

“Feels good, does it?”

“Mmmmmm…” She turned her head far enough so I could lean over to kiss the corner of her mouth. “You’ll spoil me rotten, and then I’ll be rotten as well as useless.”

“Rotten things aren’t useless, they make great compost.” I released her arms and began running my hands up and down the sides of her torso, my fingertips rubbing in circles along the lines adana escort of her ribs. She sighed. “Imagine being compost and earthworms crawling on and inside you.”

“That’s horrible!”

“I don’t know. I like earthworms. It might be sexy, when they begin crawling between your legs Or here.” My hands, almost of their own volition, wandered to her chest, below and then sliding up to cradle her breasts. My fingers rubbed and tweaked her nipples. She moaned.

“Marcilla,” she said, “I love you.”

“Why?” I teased. “Because I do this?” My left hand tweaked her nipples while my right wandered down her abdomen. “Or because I do this?” My questing fingers found the soft folds of her labia. I ran my fingertips up and down them. “Well? What do you want next?”

“You know what I want,” she said.

“I don’t. Is it this?” I ran the insides of my feet up and down her shins. “Or this?” I pressed my mouth to the back of her neck. “Or this?” My fingertip twirled a circle on her clitoris. “Which?”

She shook and inadvertently ground her bottom against my hips. “You tart!”

“Your tart, and don’t you forget…” I paused. Since there were only the two of us in the hotel room, and the outer door was locked, I’d not bothered to close the bathroom door. Opposite the bathtub was the sink and over it the mirror, and from my position I could see some of the other room reflected. There was a man-shaped shadow on the wall over the bed. I couldn’t remember having seen it before.

I put my lips to Enid’s ear. “Stay here,” I murmured very softly. A murmur carries far less than the sibilants of a whisper. “Keep talking to me as though I’m still with you.”

“What…?” she began.

“Don’t argue,” I told her. “Do it.” Slipping noiselessly from the tub, pressing my back to the wall, I sidled towards the bathroom door. Of course I didn’t waste time wrapping a towel around myself. It would only get in the way, and after over three hundred years I have little use for modesty anyway. I braced myself for a moment and then threw myself around the side of the bathroom door, in a single motion that should bring me within striking distance of whoever it was lurking there.

But there was nobody. The room was empty. And the shadow on the wall was gone, too.

“Marcilla?” Enid stood behind me at the bathroom door, holding a towel wrapped around her. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” I said, shaking my head. “Forget it. I was just mistaken.” But of course it wasn’t nothing. I had long ago learnt to trust my instincts. I hadn’t been seeing things. There had been someone here, and that someone was here no longer.

Casually, so as not to alarm Enid unnecessarily, I checked the window and the door. They were all securely shut from the inside. “Why didn’t you stay in the bath and keep talking as I was still there?” I asked her. “That’s what I told you to do.”

“I thought you might…need help.”

It was on the tip of my tongue to snap that she was far too new to help me, but I remembered how fragile she already was with her struggles to learn her powers. “Just do as I say next time,” I sighed, going back to the bathroom to drain the tub and dry myself off. “When I tell you to do something, there’s a good reason for it.”

She nodded, looking miserable. I stepped to her and lifted her chin so she was looking me in the eye. “It’s all right, darling,” I said. “Let’s go to bed and get some sleep.”

A little later, Enid was curled up next to me in bed, snoring gently. Normally I’d have been lulled into slumber listening to her soft snores, but right now I couldn’t let myself sleep. I reclined against the padded headboard, every sense alert, watching the patch of sunlight filtering through the curtained window slowly crawl across the wall as the hours passed, waiting for something to happen. But nothing did.

It was late in the afternoon when Enid woke. She rubbed her eyes, stretched, yawned, looked at me, and pointed an accusatory finger. “You didn’t sleep at all, did you?”

“How can you tell?”

“You’ve got that wide awake look on your face. You’ve been keeping watch again, haven’t you?” She didn’t bother to wait for my answer. “God, Marcilla, when will you realise that you need sleep, you nutter? I’ve told you over and over that I can keep watch as well as you.”

“Yes, I know you can.” I leant over to kiss her on the temple and got out of bed. “We’d better get ready to go out for dinner.”

“How can we find dinner here? In the middle of a city? People are everywhere. They’ll notice!”

I grinned. “You’ll see. Consider this a learning opportunity.” Fetching my phone from beside the bed, I search engined the name of the city and then looked for the unsafe and violence prone spots that tourists were advised to avoid. One was within extended walking distance, so we wouldn’t even have to bother with our bicycles. “Get dressed and let’s go.”

By the time we left the hotel darkness had fallen. I walked casually, my hand brushing Enid’s, trying ankara escort to look as though we were just a couple out for an evening stroll, trying not to look anyone in the face so they wouldn’t notice my glowing red eyes. I’ve had a lot of practice at that. The streets were crowded, too crowded for me to be able to tell if anyone was watching for us, but by the same token it would be difficult to keep us in sight for long.

As though at random, taking our time, I steered Enid through streets that became narrower, progressively less crowded and well-lit, until we reached a to all appearances deserted stretch between the dark hulk of an apparently abandoned factory on one side and a row of old buildings set back from the street on the other. The space between the old buildings and the street was lined with big, leafy trees, and the shadows under them were dark and heavy. Of course, with our eyes we could still see quite well. I began to hum a tune, one of my favourite songs.

“What’s that you’re humming?” Enid asked.

I had to remind myself again that she was so young that even 1970s tunes were ancient to her. “Tony Christie, Avenues and Alleyways,” I said. “It seems appropriate. ‘While you sleep there’s a whole world coming alive/ Abel and his brother/Fighting one another/In and out of every dive.’ It’s a nice song. I’ll sing the whole thing for you if you like.”

“Please don’t.” She shook her head in disgust. “I thought your parents had made you take singing lessons?”

“I’ve had centuries to forget those lessons.” I laughed. “But I’ll try to remember just so I can sing to you.”

We walked on. The old houses got older and darker. Enid laced her fingers through mine. “Nice evening, isn’t it?” she said. “Did you notice that we’re being followed?”

I had to push down a bubble of laughter at the casual way she’d stated it. “Where?” I asked, “and how many?”

“Two of them, I think. Blokes. They’re behind us, this side of the street.” She hesitated. “Maybe they’re just going this way?”

“Let’s see.” I fished my phone out of my pocket, turned on the front camera, and held it at face level, so I could see the street behind us. Sure enough, there they were, still maybe thirty or forty metres away. “Let’s try a test.”

“A test?”

I pulled Enid by the arm out of the shadows of the trees so that we were illuminated by some wan lamplight. “Pose,” I told her, putting my arm around her shoulder, and held up the phone as though we were taking a selfie. My eyes were on the two figures in the frame, behind us. They stopped immediately as soon as we did.

“Yes, they’re following us.” I put the phone back in my pocket. “Makes things simpler for us, doesn’t it?”

“How?” To her credit Enid resisted any temptation to look over her shoulder.

“I was planning to find some hole-in-the-wall pub where we could try to get picked up by our food, but this is a lot better. And just two of them, too, one for each of us, the ideal number.”

She glanced at me. “So what are we going to do now?”

“Let them come to us,” I said, and raised her hand to my lips. “It’s a lot easier this way, you’ll see.”

______________________________________________

ENID:

With every day that passes, I find out more ways in which I love this nutter.

Today she stayed awake through the day, letting me sleep, while she kept watch. I know there’s something on her mind, something to do with the time she jumped out of the bath and into the other room. I wish she’d let me do more to deserve to be hers.

I know I’m not good enough. Though she keeps telling me I am, I don’t see how.

I mean, I can’t even do basic things yet. When we left the hotel she touched my shoulder. “Are your fangs under control?” she asked quietly.

They had been during the day, but when I tounged my mouth I could feel them pushing down. I shook my head.

“Don’t worry,” she said, “just don’t smile while we’re amongst people, that’s all.”

Can’t bloody even keep my fangs tucked up, I thought to myself. If Marcilla had any sense she’d dump me and move on. But she won’t, that’s why she’s a nutter.

We walked until it came to a dark and quiet part of town, with moths and things flitting about. Something flapped close by my shoulder and when I turned my head for a look at it I saw two blokes behind us. I told Marcilla and she said we’d feed from them. How? By letting them catch us.

This lass is mental, and I love her for it.

Why does she love me? I don’t know. Each time I ask myself this, the more I don’t have an answer.

So we walked on, Marcilla taking the chance to hold and hug me and snog me every once in a while so, she muttered in my ear, the knobs following us would decide that we were too tied up with each other to notice them. Then we reached an open space between two buildings, too wide to be called a ginnel, which was jammed full of things, a pile of tyres, boxes, and other rubbish.

“In here,” Marcilla muttered. “They’ll adıyaman escort never pass up this chance.”

I dithered a moment. “Won’t they think it dodgy that we’re going in there?”

“No they won’t, they’ll think we’re going in for…you know.” She gave my arm a tug. “Come on.”

We turned into the space, and Marcilla wrapped her arms around me and pulled me in for a kiss. “Make it look good,” she muttered against my lips.

I didn’t have to try to make it look good. Every time she snogs me, I go weak in the knees and have to hold on to her. This time was no different.

My eyes were still closed and her mouth on mine when I heard the voice behind me. “Ey look what we ‘ave ‘ere.”

The other voice. “Looks like tourist bitches, where they shouldn’t be.” The English was thickly accented, with pauses between words.

“Doin’ what they shouldn’t be, too.” They were obviously not used to speaking English, but doing so to intimidate us.

Marcilla released me and we turned. The two of them were walking slowly towards us, with the self-satisfied look of hunters who’d got their prey cornered and helpless. One was bearded and had a big crooked nose, the other was tubby and had a scarred face. “Should teach them a lesson,” the first one said.

“We should teach them a man’s better than another whore. One good shag and…” Scar began undoing his belt buckle.

Marcilla raised a hand. “Gentlemen. Before you begin attempting to sate your lusts…” I could see them blinking at her in confusion. It was probably the most posh they’d ever heard anybody ever speak. “As I said, before you start your planned assault on our persons, I’ll give you one opportunity to back off and, in safety, go on your way.”

I’d asked Marcilla, when she’d been telling me about other times she’d hunted alone, why she sometimes gave her prey warning before she got stuck into them. She’d shrugged. “You’ll see.”

Now all I saw was these two gits blink at each other and then grin. “Wordy bitch,” Scar said. “Let’s shut her up.”

“Which one do you want, Enid?” Marcilla asked me calmly.

I couldn’t make myself speak. I’d suddenly reached the point I always did before feeding, when my gob filled with spit and my nose and head with the scent of blood almost within reach. My fangs pushed down fully, my tummy twisted with hunger, and I began moving towards Scar, who was closer to me than Beard. His eyes went wide and he began to scream.

The next thing I was aware of was Marcilla pulling my arms off Scar’s shoulders. “That’s enough, Enid,” she said. “That’s enough! Any more and you’ll kill him.”

I shook my head and, as always, the red haze faded from my mind. Beard was sitting with his back against the pile of tyres, his cakehole hanging open, moaning. Scar fell limply to the ground at my feet when Marcilla got my arms off him. I scrubbed the back of my hand across my lips. It came away red and wet.

“I keep giving them a chance to save themselves,” Marcilla said, putting her arm around me, as we walked out of that dark space and turned back the way we’d come. “If they don’t take that chance, and they never do, is it my fault what happens to them?”

“I…” I felt my eyes wetting. “I’ll never learn to control myself. I’m rubbish at this.”

She kissed my head. “Of course you will. It took me centuries, but I was alone, and you have me to help you.”

“How very touching,” a voice said, right behind us. “Young love is so very romantic. Not so young love, too, come to think of it.”

I literally jumped, like I was a character in the toons, the bellend’s blood churning in my tummy. Marcilla was much faster, and had already spun around, her lips raised in a snarl so her fangs showed. But then she sighed, her shoulders slumping. “Oh. It’s you.”

I turned slowly. I’d only seen him the one time, the morning when I’d been turned, but I clocked him immediately. He was leaning against a tree, watching us with a grin on his face. His eyes were black as black and had no smile in them at all.

“Yes, Countess,” he said. “It’s nice to see you again. I can absolutely guarantee, from your facial expressions, that the pleasure is all mine.”

______________________________________________

MARCILLA:

I stared at him and suddenly things fell into place.

“You. It was you in our hotel room today, wasn’t it?”

He didn’t seem the least bit put out. “Of course it was. But I decided to not intrude on your, ah, intimate time.”

I wished I could disembowel him. I had a very clear mental image of my teeth and nails laying him open at our feet, in a mess of his own blood and intestines. Of course he didn’t even have any blood or intestines. “What the hell do you want?”

“Straight to the point, I see. But I suppose I should have expected it, seeing that I told you when we first met that I don’t play games.” He heaved a theatrical sigh. “As I was saying, I have a job for you.”

“A job?” My mouth twisted involuntarily. “We don’t need jobs.”

“I should have said, I have a mission for you. You remember our agreement, right?”

“I’m sure you’d remind me if I said no, so I won’t. I repeat, what the hell do you want?”

“There’s a man, right here in this city. We require him to be stopped from attending a meeting. That is all.”

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