SADLIER

    

    Her gown was black and made of illusion. Sadlier knew that now. It didn’t matter.

    He dumped them down in front of her near the black and crawling thing on the floor and near the other two, the teenage boy and girl and did not wonder how they came to be there, knew only that she had gathered them and saw that the crabs had begun to find them too as they would now find Ruth and Dulac. He didn’t care. She was everything to him now.

    She motioned him outside ahead of her.

    She pushed him back and down. Behind her the night surf thundered.

    She stepped up to him and straddled his face and parted the gown still further. She pressed herself against him. He gripped her buttocks. Her flesh was cold to his hands but inside of her his tongue found a blazing scorching heat.

    Again he tasted blood. Old blood, dead blood. Raw and ripe.

    Suddenly it poured over him.

    He lapped it like a dog. She pushed him away.

    She tore away his shirt and smiling, leaned over him, pressed her body to his, her smile broadening as she felt him already wet inside his trousers.

    “Close your eyes if you want,” she said, her voice like a silk glove.

    He kept them open.

    So that it was like watching a snake or perhaps a wolf or bird of prey because she drew back slowly, he could feel the hard muscles coil and then when it came it was sudden, faster than he could possibly have imagined it would be.

    For a moment the wide blue eyes seemed to float before him, blotting out the sun.

    Then the mouth flew open and the head struck down as she tore at his neck and shoulder, blood pulsing out over both of them as she ripped at him and bolted his flesh, head darting forward and then jerking back as she swallowed and the last thing he saw as a living man was the look of ecstasy on her face and knew that it matched his own.