Anno Dracula - Kim Newman [85]
She tried to sit up. The kidneys were like large dead slugs, bursting under her weight. She was smeared with their discharges. The elder returned his attention to her and stretched out a bony arm, sleeve seeming to swell in an unfelt breeze. From the dark of his robe was disgorged a fluttering cloud that grew like the impossible billows of a magician’s scarf. Darting and chittering, the cloud swarmed towards her. A million tiny butterflies, many-coloured beauties whose wings caught the light like a scattering of diamond fragments, closed around her. They clustered on the meat, devouring it instantly, and bothered her face, seething around the scraps stuck to her skin, worrying the corners of her eyes.
She kept her mouth shut tight and shook her head violently. She wiped at her face with her wrists. Every time she loosed a swath, the butterflies would gather again. She reached out for the fallen lamp, and pinched out the flame. After yanking free the still-hissing wick, she emptied the lamp over her head. The butterflies were washed away, and the smell of paraffin-oil stung her nostrils. One spark, and her head would be a candleflame. She scraped dead butterflies out of her hair, and threw them away by the mucky handful.
The elder stood over her. He bent down and picked her up by her shoulders. She hung from his hold like a length of cloth. She let herself relax. Her toes scraped cobbles. Maybe there was amusement in the dusty emerald of his ancient eyes. His needle-rimmed maw came close to her face, and she smelled his perfumed breath. From the teeth-circled red cleft emerged a pointed, tubular tongue like the proboscis of a mosquito. He could drain her dry, leave her a husk. She might live, but that would be the worst outcome.
Her feet flat on the ground now, she was looking up at the creature. She let her head flop back, and exposed her throat in submission. The tongue snaked towards her, its worm-toothed aperture pulsing. She gave him a few seconds to relish victory and grabbed him just under his armpits, nails stabbing through his robe and scrabbling against his ribs. Mouth agape, she lunged up at his face and bit. She caught his tongue and clamped her jaw tight around the wriggling meat. A peppery taste flooded her mouth, choking her. The tongue, stronger than a snake, fought her jaw-grip. She felt the filthy thing throb. Around his tongue, the vampire screeched in fury. She was hurting him. Her teeth sawed through gristle and muscle and, with a click, met. The tongue-end in her mouth writhed, and she spat it out.
The vampire spun away from her, a gush of oily black exploding from his mouth-hole and splashing down the front of his robe. He still cried, screams emerging in bubbles of blood. The creature would not be feeding on her. She wiped her mouth on her ruined sleeve, coughing and spitting, trying to purge the taste. Her whole mouth was numbed, her throat burned. The elder, spinning, flailed at her again. His blows buffeted her against a wall and he began to work on her like a boxer, hammering her belly and neck. He was angry now, and not so precise. All he had was force, no skill. Pain spread through her body. He took her head as he must have taken the horse’s and wrenched it to one side. Her neckbones parted and she howled in her hurt. The vampire threw her down and kicked her in the side. Then he jumped on her ribs. She heard her own bones breaking.
She opened her eyes. The vampire was sneering down, keening like a wounded seal. His lower face was a steaming mass of flesh and teeth, trying to mend itself. Saliva and blood dripped on her. Then he was gone and other faces were crowding around.
‘Let me through,’ someone said. ‘Move aside, for the Lord’s sake...’
She hurt. Her ribs were fixing as she breathed, stabbing pains receding with each wave. But her neck was out. And she was bone-weary,