Chapter 4.15 – Cold Day in Hell

Note: this one is pretty warped. Nothing that hasn’t already been alluded to, mind.

Seth stirred from his sanguine induced coma and blinked at the at morning sun above him. The Bluffs, he’d been there for most of the morning, listening to the ocean, enjoying the slight ache of the sunlight on his exposed face, and allowing the copious quantities of blood he’d ingested to rest steady within him.

It wasn’t only the uncomfortable physical feeling of fullness he was contending with – thanks to his newly begotten ‘power’, he was also wrestling with the demon of conscience.

He wondered how the daughter of his first prey would react to her father going missing.

John Boggle. Fifty-six. Taxi Driver. Divorced. One child. Had been pulled over on the A461 with a flat tyre. Had wept for his life.

He considered how long it would take for the colleagues of his second prey to realise that he wasn’t coming back to work.

Remus Fudgestick. Twenty. Single. Factory operative. Had been taking a sneaky cigarette break during his night shift. Thought he was invincible.

He mused over whether his final prey had been correct; that nobody cared that she’d existed.

Betty Button. Thirty-seven. Spinster. Childless. Recently unemployed. Had been wandering along the trainline in her pyjamas. Had welcomed him with open arms.

With Betty’s resigned face burdening his heavy heart, Seth forced his thoughts elsewhere, to his plans, if only to distract himself from the spiral of madness.

He recalled his night on the crypt at the Vatore house, and the absence of one, Jessica Spoon at her house. He thought about how best to locate her and, once he had, the best way to approach the woman without killing her through fear.

Deep in thought, and still plagued by Betty’s sad surrender, he jumped when a white object shifted into his field of view.

It was that cat again. Seth had affectionately named it Bob. It was a calm cat, watchful and intelligent. Largely friendly, but rarely allowed itself to be fussed for long, and never again held. It had been following him for a few months now, appearing regularly in the shadows and darting across his path in otherwise abandoned locations, so the appearance of the animal in itself no longer posed a question.

How it could have made it out here, did.

He considered, of course, that it was not the same cat. However, it did look identical, from the sheer volume of its billowing fur to the smiling sneer beneath its whiskers. It approached Seth without any hesitation, stopping a few feet away, and fixing him with that familiar steely stare.

Bob or not, grateful for the distraction, Seth rose from his reclined position and approached the feline who raised its head for a quick scratch behind the ears. As it purred and rolled its fluffy face into Seth’s gloved palm, Seth noted the eye colour, the pattern of fine scratches around its eyes, the tiny freckles on its little pink nose.

It was definitely Bob, but how was that possible? The island was, as the description suggested, surrounded by the ocean, accessible only by boat or by misting. He presumed the cat could do neither, unless…

The sense of foreboding began even before Seth released that the cat was no longer purring and headbutting his palm, but was two paces away, glowing and growing…

Seth took a moment to ascertain that what he was witnessing was real, and not a side effect of a less-than-clean culinary kill. But, no matter how much he blinked, the vision didn’t shift. There was no other way to explain it; the cat was changing into something else.

Once Seth had recalled their existence, he’d often thought about how he would react should he meet one of the reprobate vampires again. Safe in his perceived knowledge that they were no more, he’d fantasised of the script of witty repartee, the fiery showdown, and his ultimate show of power and dominance against his former oppressors.

Seth had had no real recollection of the skill or mindset of the reprobates in these fantasises, of course, as was being evidenced at that unfortunate moment. Far from being spontaneously drawn into a bloodthirsty battle of mind, he would have surely been depositing into his breeches, had he had that bodily function.

The reality of being faced with Kitty did not invoke the fire, power or drive within him that Seth had fantasised about. No.

It invoked utter terror.

Kitty shook out her mass of pale curls and dusted the sand from her gown, never taking her eyes off Seth as she did so. When she had risen to her full height, diminutive as it was, she tilted her head to her shoulder and smiled up at him.

She purred softly and her lips parted, forming a string of words rounded with meows. With evident annoyance, she cleared her throat a little and tried again; this time with clarity.

“Did you miss me, baby?”

Her words had such a luxurious sound, soft and inviting. Her voice was instantly recognisable to Seth, stirring a tumultuous tornado of mixed feelings in the vampire. Her greeting brought forth a fold of memories of the times he’d previously heard it, echoing in the darkness, whispering into his ear, into his mind.

Kitty’s hand fluttered to her decolletage, fingering a small key that lay at her throat, her her expression remained cool.

“Whatever is wrong?” she asked. Cat got your tongue?

Kitty’s final words originated not from her lips, but from inside his own mind and threw Seth even further off-kilter. Naturally, Lilith had addressed him in such a way, once upon a time, but he didn’t remember it being quite so… intrusive.

It filled his head, his whole body and everything around him.

He shuddered and Kitty’s eerie, red smile faded.

“I see,” she said, a little sadly, her gaze dropping from his face where she’d been fixated and scanning down his body to his waistband where she paused. “No greeting at all for your mistress?”

Her eyes flicked back up for a second at her last word, not quite to his own, and an impish smile lifted the corner of her mouth for a ‘blink and miss it’ moment.

This attempt at, what Seth assumed to be, flirtation did not garner whatever reaction Kitty was hoping for. Her subtly seductive smile vanished

“Seth Grimm. Mute as a button and just as dumb. I never thought I would see the day!” She tossed her curls over her shoulder, drawing Seth’s learned gaze to the pale elegance of her neck before, one by one, the silvery tendrils rebelled and slid back into place.

As he tore his stare away, steering it back to her fluorescent green eyes, he just caught her gaze flicking back up to his face and the tail end of another smile.

Seth wanted to say something, he wanted to say a hundred things, but found himself exactly as she’d described him. She narrowed her eyes and shifted a little nearer, her movements fluid and silky, keeping him fixed with an unblinking stare.

“Think of me,” she said quietly, barely audible over the crashing of the waves and a string of flashbacks that her words caused to flood in.

As the fog lifted and the island returned to Seth in a haze, Kitty staggered back and let out a small wail. “Oh!”

For a moment, neither party moved. Seth, paralysed with fear and overcome with revulsion, continued to watch Kitty as one would watch a circling tiger, although her demeanour had changed.

“I did not want to believe it but that really is all you recall of me. Twisted, tainted, tormentor! Woe!” She brought her hands to her face and turned from him dramatically, sobbing as though mortally wounded. “How could you do this?!” she wailed into the ocean air. “How could you?!”

Seth wasn’t sure if she was referring to something he’d done, or the act of someone else, but her reaction prompted him to respond. Some deep seated desire to please her, or perhaps the knowledge to not displease her, allowed his curiosity to overpower his fear.

“There’s more?”

Kitty didn’t turn, but he saw her slowly nod. “There was. We had so much more. We were so much more, Seth.”

She didn’t elaborate, clearly waiting for him to ask. Or, if memory served him, to beg. Her sobbing had ceased as suddenly as it had started; her feigned fragility and evasiveness finally awoke the spirit that had so far lain dormant during this whole exchange. His anger began to rise.

She turned slightly, seemingly surprised at his silence.

“Do you not wish to know?”

“Of course I bloody want to know,” he mumbled without complete autonomy of his words, he realised with wariness.

She inched forwards, approaching him with the delicacy one might use to cross a fractured, frozen lake. As she got closer he was reminded of her floral decay, her unique scent that had permeated his fitful dreams and perfumed his waking nightmare. He recalled her petiteness; how her feet had barely brushed the floor when she’d straddled him…

But he was also reminded of other, oddly wholesome, things.

“…Kitty? Are you all right?”

“Alas, no. I have been bested by an illiterate crook…”

“…it must not happen again.”

“We were so, so much more,” she whispered. She reached out her hand towards his, her words weaving through the newest stream of imagery that was playing out in his mind. He fought to acknowledge what he was seeing, fleeting as it was, a tease of an offering. “Accompany me to the Manor, Seth and we can talk.” She linked her fingers with his. “There is much to discuss, perhaps much to rekindle.”

He snatched his hand from her reach as his sense caught up to him. “It’ll be a cold day in hell when I go anywhere again with you, Kitty.”

She seemed off guard, only for a second, then she laughed. “Is that so? Then I shall knit the devil a scarf.” She leaned nearer, her eyes sparkling as she searched his own. “Ah! My sardonic love, my sweetest challenge. I see that you are still in there, somewhere in the mist of unsurety and amnesia.” She placed a small, delicate hand upon his chest, and sighed wistfully. “Come home to me, baby. I have all the answers you seek.”

He could feel her within his mind; his heart was almost beating with his anticipation and anxiety; the promise of her knowledge laced with the poison of her unknown. He could feel his will diminishing within her embrace but he wouldn’t give in without a fight, without stamping his boundaries and ensuring she was clear on who exactly she was dealing with.

“I’m not your bloody baby.”

He swatted her hand away without moving his arm; the force of his efforts sending her spinning. He snarled as he clenched his fist, twisting her arm in the grip of her invisible captor, relishing the surprised whimper that escaped her.

This was it, fantasy fulfilled. Three centuries after he’d been held and tormented he was finally the one in charge, the one with all the control. Surely this was it had been all for; the unceasing megalomania had led him to this moment. This one, glorious moment—

He felt her like a whip to the back as she fought against him, thwarting his attempts to send her lipstick-first into the dunes, and swiftly crippling him in a full body lock. As his body withered and submitted to this superior skill, he lost any hold he thought he’d had on her.

Overpowered and limp, he dropped to the floor like a lead weight.

Kitty stared out to the horizon dully as he struggled against her, desperately.

“That was uncalled for; you could have simply walked away.” She looked down at him as he continued to fight her; her annoyance giving way to pride. “Oh! Look at you!” She cooed, in a patronising way that got his shackles back up. “How big and strong you have become; you almost had me. No! Stay down!” she commanded as he found a brief foothold and tried to rise. He felt himself plummet back to the ground, clouds rising around him. “Stay down,” she said more softly. Hush.

He felt every muscle in his body liquefy as he melted into the sand. She crouched beside him and stroked his cheek, his scar, gently with her fingernail. “Baby,” she whispered.

He spat in her face.

Kitty dabbed at her cheek and turned away. “How time does change us. Once a soul of honour who would do anything for a woman he loved now to this,” she sighed with disdain, gesturing to the seething man writhing at her feet. “Oh! What has become of you? Who is this loathsome cad lying before me?”

Seth didn’t reply, couldn’t, his wrath tangled around his retort, his tongue, he realised, was now also locked in place by Kitty.

She walked around him in a slow circle, surveying every inch of him before coming to a pause before him. “Perhaps I need to remind you exactly who you are dealing with, boy.” She purred, pressing her foot into Seth’s chest and sending the man, who had almost made it on to his feet, falling back into the dirt, once again, with ease.

She lifted her foot from the breast of his jacket, hovering it over his torso. “Wherever shall we begin with our reminder?” she mused, turning her heel in a circle in the air. “Aha!” She bent her knee until her dainty stiletto was positioned precariously in the air between his thighs.

Seth barely had a second to comprehend what she was about to do as Kitty closed the gap between them rapidly with a satisfied little hiss. She plunged her heel into one of the only parts of him that ever really felt anything; an undeniable implosion of agony.

He groaned. Unable to double over as he was naturally inclined to do. Unable to shield himself. Unable to do anything at all but writhe against his invisible binds. His fear bubbling to the surface as Kitty lifted her foot and rotated her ankle in a slow circle, surveying his crotch as if she were a sculptor aiming her next move.

“I did not raise you to be defiant,” she punctuated with another stamp, “sarcastic,” she pressed her weight down, “or a liar,” she finished as she ground.

His tampered cries of pain took on a strangled groan with that last motion. Kitty smiled and continued to grind her heel into him, varying the pressure and motion, until Seth was seething in utter agony, reeling, seeing stars…

…and hard as a rock. There was no denying it.

Kitty, please… he projected.

“More?” she asked sweetly, shunting her heel in so far that he thought his manhood would pop out of his mouth.

No! No more… no more… he begged, his pelvis betraying his words and reaching for her cruel attention.

“Lies…” she purred.

“Kitty…” he gargled, beyond words, beyond sense. His body alight; his nerves in shreds, watching the silver-haired woman with the reverence of a goddess. He hadn’t felt like this since… since…

Since he’d lost her.

Kitty emitted a gleeful squeak and pulled her heel back. He felt her foot lift and groaned as the raw pain came rushing into his throbbing groin, already missing its tormenter. He lay motionless, dazed, staring at the sun as realisation dawned and the ache of longing engulfed him.

She slipped her shoe off. He felt the full pressure of her small foot, bare this time. Gentler, caressing.

“Did you miss me, baby?” she asked again.

Yes.

Yes

Yes.

Always. Yes.

Satisfied, her efforts became more concerted. He looked up at her and whimpered pitifully as she continued to rock him between the highs of pleasure and the sweet misery of pain. The pressure rising within him, reaching and building with her attention.

Her relentless attention.

She was going to humiliate him, make him mess his trousers, pinned to the sand, like this, he realised; the complete lack of control, the shame was the icing on his debauched cake as he stopped fighting her, stopped doubting her, submitted to her completely.

His mistress.

“Do you think you have earned this, Seth?” She asked, so sweetly with a healthy undercurrent of malice.

Seth was so far from rational thought that he barely heard her. He couldn’t think, he stuttered but ultimately couldn’t answer, his crotch burning and throbbing, seconds from release.

Answer me, boy.

He felt his tongue unlock. “…No?” he guessed tentatively.

Kitty lifted her foot and slipped her shoe back on in one butter smooth motion, without wobble or pause. She shook her curls into place and continued to shake her head thereafter ‘no’.

“No, you do not,” she agreed. “After everything I did for you,” she continued unperturbed over his scoff, “you abandoned me baby, when I needed you the very most.”

“I-I don’t remember!”

Kitty scrutinised him for a moment before she straightened and huffed an errant curl from her forehead. “Even after all that. Ugh, how terribly frustrating this is!”

“You’re telling me,” Seth murmured. She continued to rant to the sky, but he didn’t know what she was talking about, although that might’ve been because his balls were screaming. He tried to gather himself enough to take advantage of her distraction but still couldn’t move.

“Do you at least remember why you don’t remember, Seth? No,” she interjected as his mouth began to form the name, “it wasn’t anything to do with Silas’ daughter.”

“It wasn’t Lilith?” He uttered, everything he thought he knew, once again had come to nothing, bringing that all too familiar desperation to vanquish the unknown. “Then… who was it?”

“It was Patrick,” she said solemnly.

“Patrick?” He repeated, searching his memories.

“Patrick?!” he said again. “Why?”

“That I do not know, but we shall together find out.” She crouched beside him, cupped his cheek. “Come with me, home to the Galloway manor. Let us discuss over a smooth drink the gaps you have and how we might fill them.”

She traced her fingernail down his chest, his stomach, ending at his waistband then lifted it and drew a circle in the air, enveloping them both in warmth. “Will you come with me?”

He had been fighting, but at this question he paused. “I have a choice?”

“You always had a choice.”

“Then no.”

Kitty tilted her head, the heat still encircling them both began to fade. He felt her perusing this thoughts, watched her face flicker through various emotions.

When she spoke it was as soft and hazy as the air around them. “Seth, I will not lock you a basement. There is no need to abide by Layne’s rules now; no need to hide from the watcher-fearing masses, you may come and go as you please.” She smoothed down the silk of her dress, watching as his eyes followed the movement of her hand. “Besides, the basement is rather full at the moment, with all of the clutter for Caleb’s girls.”

“Caleb’s girls?” Seth repeated, his mouth going dry and his mind immediately going to Faith, April and Melinda. “They’re with you?”

“Yes.”

“And Caleb is with you? What about L—“

Kitty’s eyelid twitched “Oh! can you go five minutes without talking about that traitorous wench? I would sooner eat the woman than befriend her!” she composed herself. “Yes, Caleb is also my guest. My esteemed guest. A pure rogue free at last to pursue his interests and true nature, far from the noose of his sister,” Kitty laughed and tossed her hair. “He is a fine vampire – at least he shall be – but naturally his company is… lacking.”

“Lacking?” Seth repeated, to keep Kitty talking. His brain going a mile a minute with this new information, but being careful to keep them guarded from the silver-haired vampire.

“Lacking,” she confirmed. “The depth of a puddle and oh, that boy knows not a thing about the modern world.”

Seth nodded, still hung up on the possibility that Faith was in the Galloway manor, as Kitty mused on. “What is electricity and why is music made from it? Why is every single item made of plastic? Which clothing is premium and which is peasant?” She looked down at Seth, who was still rigidly pinned to the floor like a butterfly specimen to a board and shrugged. “Perhaps you are not the best to answer that one. Perhaps I should ask the girls,” She sighed dramatically, before he could get a word in.

“So much has changed,” she whispered, staring out at the sailboats on the horizon. “I feel… oh! so very lost in this world, Seth. Forever young and yet so very… ancient. I crave familiarity, substance, reminiscences with one from my time… I am sure that, reclusive as you are, you can understand that.”

He didn’t respond. The truth would be what she wanted to hear, and a lie would likely lead her to rupture his other bollock.

“The manor really is not the same without you. Your wit, your scheming, our wicked games.” She glanced down at her – still very much throbbing – handiwork and laughed a little, finally releasing her hold on him.

“If you will not visit with me now, Seth, pray, tell me that you will think about it.”

“I’ll think about it,” he muttered, against his better judgement.

She pivoted on her heel and grinned over her shoulder. “Then, until we meet again…” Seth watched as the shimmering rainbow of lights engulfed her, shrunk her, until she was once again the white fluffy cat that had, he now understood, always been following him.

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