Cursed Insanity

[MythologicalRealities]

This is the 3rd chapter of the novel I'm working on. Any critique would be much appreciated. It is Dark Fantasy, it does involve vampires, so it is rather creepy in parts.

 After a day spent aimlessly wandering through the confinement of dim passageways, the new vampire was the first to reach the cave entrance, where he stood in the shadows, eagerly awaiting a banner of crimson gold to be hung behind the silhouettes of tremendous pines pricking into the horizon. This sunset would be the first mark of the coming night. After the daylight had faded into darkness, and the luminescent moon had risen, he would be free to roam and kill as he wished. He felt his pulse accelerate and his eyes begin to gleam red, though not as brightly as they would after he had slain tonight's prey.
   “Not tonight.” He felt a whisper of breath on his neck, followed by the soft stroke of claws over his cheek, brushing the hair from his eyes. The talons slightly scratched his skin as she traced her fingers over his cheekbones and down the nape of his neck. The powerful hands began to massage his shoulders and fingernails like spurs prickled into his flesh. His vulnerability beneath this touch caused him to be fervent with hazardous thrills.
   “You can feel it, can’t you? The bloodlust? Your thirst and your hunger?” The breath came again on his stinging right cheek, as the sun set deeper into the horizon. “Not tonight, my son. This night, you will spend with me.”
   Anguish set upon the vampire. His kin were rising from their coffins and gliding past him to wreak havoc through the night, yet he was bound to the whispering creature compelling him to stay.
   After every tomb was vacated, the vampire whirled around so that his eyes could rest upon his captor.
“Why?” He gasped, unable to defy his queen, yet equally unable to escape the pull of the dark hours awaiting him beyond the cave.
“I must talk with you. Follow me.” Without another word, the queen seized his wrist, her nails drawing blood, then dragged him through the tangle of gloomy corridors that he had been caged in that very day. With each step, the two became cloaked in even deeper darkness, doubts clouding the vampire’s mind as his queen led them through cavernous paths into which he would never have dared to stray.

  Finally, the young vampire felt their pace slow, then stop, and he realised they had reached their destination. The feeble light in this chamber dazed him slightly after the complete darkness he had adapted to. The queen let go of his hand and he could see her vampiric outline making way to a white marble basin in the centre of the room. He was tempted to follow, but thought better of it, and stood, watching her. She knelt before the font, as if in prayer. He couldn’t make out the soft words she mumbled, but the room seemed to resonate with the promise of sin as she spoke them.
   Rising, she gestured for him to move closer to her. As he approached the basin, he became aware that the liquid in it was glistening with the same red tones as the queen’s eyes. She dipped her index finger in it, then held it at eye level, her eyes lighting up as she stared intently at it. The light from the basin reflected on the droplets so that they shimmered before her. She tilted her head to the side and turned her gaze to the vampire beside her. When her eyes fixed on him, they held no trace of humanity, but were filled with wild hunger. She ran her scarlet tipped finger across the two scars she had slit into his cheeks, while she stared acutely into his eyes, a bestial smile on her lips.
   A potent sense of terror overwhelmed the vampire, rendering him motionless so that he could do nothing in the face of his queen’s aberrant behaviour. Her hands slid over his upper body, feeling the accelerated pulse of his heartbeat as she unfastened his buttons and skimmed her slender fingers over his pale chest. He winced in pain as she touched the red, tender burns the sun had wrought upon his flesh. As she examined him, she murmured unceasingly about the brutality and wrath of the sun.
“Undress yourself further. I wouldn’t like to be immodest.” The queen’s manner changed so quickly that it terrified her exposed subject. He had no hesitations in obeying her will, as he was less concerned about the sun’s wrath than hers.
   She sent him an electrifyingly shameless smile as she turned back to him, her eyes running over every inch of his naked body. He set back his shoulders as though challenging her to humble him. The queen turned from him again, reaching into the fountain once more to draw out a brimming goblet. She thrust it towards her subject before cradling her ensanguined hand, her shoulders hunched as if to guard this prize from him. Her nimble, red tongue hungrily darted over the stains decorating her lower arm, and then slithered downward to lap the fluids from her palm. She sunk fangs into her own flesh in eagerness to feed but as she began to draw her own blood, she sharply tore her lips away and spat to the ground as if to rid herself of the taste, a sneer drawn across her ghostly features.
   Her eyes were alight with appetence when she refocused on her subordinate and her whole body seemed to blaze with passion. She wrenched the chalice from the other vampire’s grasp and watched the liquid dance as she twirled the vessel between her fingers. With a sullen pout set upon her features, she held it still and dipped her other hand into the goblet. Her touch was light yet forceful as her claws trailed the fluid over the wounds the sun had rendered over his body.
   Throughout this process, the servile vampire stood motionless as his body was restored, his mottled red plague fading into pallor.
   His queen giggled slightly as she treated him, whispering curses and spells into the air. As she ran the scarlet salve over his legs, the slight outbursts of her laughter became quick and fanatical, until she collapsed to the ground, her face contorted in delirium as her body writhed in hysteria. Instinctively, her liege gathered the frenzied body in his arms, surprised at how weightless and diminutive his queen really was, without her commanding exterior.
   The vampiress’ demented expression fell away with the closing of her eyes as her inferior vampire held her tightly against his plain chest. He held her at the elbows, so that her arms were pressed against his bare torso. Although she appeared to be sleeping, her black talons made their way over his body and around his shoulders, grasping at his newly repaired skin. He felt uncomfortably close to her, stimulated, yet distressed about the situation, especially now that the queen nestled in his arms had thrown herself deep into an abyss of lunacy. She ran her knuckles against the hollows of his cheeks before stroking the scars she had made on his cheekbones. At this time, her eyes widened, to look almost lovingly upon the vampire holding her.
   She extended her tongue and ran it over the wounds blemishing his face, as if to taste the last remnants of the blood she had drawn over them.
“You know what these tell me?” The vampiress pulled away from her subject with a devilish air.
“Tell me, my queen.”  He fought to keep his voice steadily meek in her presence, fighting back an innate sense of apprehension.
“They show me that you’re mine!” She laughed in a way that disturbed him more than her previous frenzied giggling. “All your other scars, all your other flaws have been remedied by my... tonic. But these scars, the ones I made for you, they will always be there, a reminder that you are mine!” Her voice broke into a terrifying cackle, triggering an unyielding sweat to erupt from her subject’s pores. The world closed in on him until all he could see were her bloody eyes, watching him, laughing cruelly at the way she possessed him. Everything caved around him; his memories began to clatter throughout his psyche as he gasped for breath, drowning in his own mind. Her voice echoed pitilessly in his fearful mind as he collapsed, his plea for mercy coming as a weak rasp. Lying, barely conscious, on the cold, hard floor, all he could see were her eyes, ruthless and ravenous, and even they faded into nothingness as she punctured his heavily perspiring neck, to draw the blood she claimed was hers. He drifted into the void she had created for him, her malevolent laughter mingling with a lethal screech as it chased and haunted him into the chasm.

Awakening from his tormenting nightmares, a stiff ache set into his joints. His mind so drained that he could barely consider his circumstances. With an effort, he raised his hand and sunk fangs into it. Seeing the drops of blood that appeared, he let his arm drop again, barely registering the thud of pain that clapped over it as it hit the solid, granite bench he lay on.
   The vampire closed his eyes, trying to gather enough willpower to make sense of his situation.
“Who am I?” He murmured the question aloud, beseeching the vast darkness for an answer.
“You are mine, of course.” He was taken aback when the reply came. He strained his frail body to see where the voice came from. Entirely poised, with a warped smile, his queen watched him. As memories from the previous night cascaded into his mind, he wrestled to bite back his repugnance.
“Then who was I?” The young vampire couldn’t elude this issue.
“Shall I tell you a story, child?” That sinister giggle reverberated around the chamber again. The vampire felt cool hands stoking his damp hair away from his sweaty brow, and her touch, yet again, generated dangerous thrills, which ricocheted around his chest. Taking his inability to talk as assent, she began to speak.
“This story is concerning our most esteemed ancestor; a magnificent woman by the name of Lamia. She was stunning, and possessed beauty so great that she caught the eye of the King of heavens, the supreme God, Zeus. He lusted for her, and she fell in love with him. This relationship conceived several children, and Lamia was happy, happier than you could imagine. That was before the malicious Hera, goddess of marriage, discovered them. When their youngest child, a daughter, was merely 3 weeks old, Hera took her revenge. The most spiteful Olympian of all cursed Lamia, transforming her into a monster that would devour her own offspring. Lamia could never sleep from then on for memories of her children haunted her. Like Hera, Lamia was prone to envy, and she was insanely jealous of mothers that were blessed with families of their own. She could not bear to let them be privileged in a way she was not, yet she could not bring herself to kill their offspring the way she had slaughtered her own. Therefore, she drank their blood and took them as her children and followers. They became just like her, in every way. They were called the Lamiai. That’s who we are.” The queen smiled into the distance, then glanced at her subject, who frowned in perplexity.
“But she didn’t sleep… And we do… Or rather, you do. In the coffins, right? So if we’re the Lamiai, we aren’t just like her.”
“Don’t be so impatient, the story isn’t finished yet.” The vampiress giggled again. “Lamia could never sleep. When she murdered her children, she had fallen into a sleep like trance of insanity, and she was terrified that if she fell asleep again she would devour the Lamiai, her new children. Zeus took pity on his former lover, and bestowed upon her the ability to take out her eyeballs during the night. Even then, she didn’t sleep, but instead saw through pupils of blood. Seeing this way made her even more monstrous. She began to drink blood not just to turn infants into Lamiai, but also out of thirst and hunger for blood, and the need to kill. During daylight, however, with her mortal eyes, her conscience plagued her, and to escape it she constructed a sarcophagus, in which she locked herself. Every night, she would arise and kill again. Soon, the Lamiai adopted the same behaviour.”
“I still don’t know who I am.” The younger vampire stared directly into the bleeding eyes of his queen.
“You are one of the Lamiai now. That’s all that matters, and that is what you’ll have to be content with.” The vampiress glared at him, her icy demeanour returning. “It’s almost daylight. You can feed tomorrow night. But if I call you, you must come to me.”

[Dolphinia]

This story seems like it has the potential to be a good one. If you can keep the mood at just this level not too dark, not too light. It has a sexual tension to it without actually being sexual. I have always enjoyed stories that can give you the feel of being naughty without actually "being naughty".

All of that said you do have some really long paragraphs here that could do with some breaking up. Also having so many, I don't know how else to say it but, big words do throw some people off the story when they have to reread a sentence to understand just what you meant.
 
  *Her eyes were alight with appetence when she refocused on her subordinate and her whole body seemed to blaze with passion*

Just an example it's not a bad thing but sometimes it's better to use 'easier' words for a more flowing story. As always these are just my thoughts hope they help. D.

[Cordilow]

Dolphinia wrote:

… I don't know how else to say it but, big words do throw some people off the story when they have to reread a sentence to understand just what you meant.

  *Her eyes were alight with appetence when she refocused on her subordinate and her whole body seemed to blaze with passion*

Just an example it's not a bad thing but sometimes it's better to use 'easier' words for a more flowing story. As always these are just my thoughts hope they help. D.

Interesting insight. I've heard readers mention that a lot—about bigger words and all. They usually don't bother me personally—so it's good to be reminded to keep the lingo in tune with the intended audience. I'm glad you gave an example here, too, since not everyone will probably agree on what words big.