A Long Time Dead by Samara Breger

Author:Samara Breger [Breger, Samara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bywater Books
Published: 2023-03-30T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 25

She awoke in a cell. There was no lamp nor window, but the darkness couldn’t hide the squalor of her surroundings, not to her cursedly capable eyes. The walls were dark brick, so wet and slimy that they seemed amphibian, dripping muck from low ceiling to uneven floor. All was equally dank, uniformly gray-black and bubbling with filth.

Her ears pricked to a squeak and shuffle. She attempted to reach for it, discovering as she did so that she was still in her strait-waistcoat. She flopped to the ground instead, worming her way across the floor. The stone scraped her face, the shallow wounds filling in with cold, wet slime. She noticed this vaguely, in a small, distant part of her mind. She was too hungry to care.

By the time she reached the source of the squeak, it was gone, undoubtedly scared off by the shambling, squirming thing that had tried to corner it. No bother. There was a small hole in the wall. Poppy knew where the beast lived. She could wait.

Her starved mind wandered. Would she die here? Could she? Or would she waste away to nothing except a stubborn shard of life, a husk of a vampire who was once quite plump and lovely? A vampire whose arse cheeks were once so round and sweet, a good slap turned them rosy. Would she live, grayed and desiccated, until the building was demolished and she was squashed between the living bricks? Was she to become the wetness?

The squeaking was back. She pounced—flopped, really, but it did the trick. The rat’s blood was greasy and thick, with the lingering, cheesy taste of butter that had long since turned. She licked her lips and exhaled.

“Did you have a family?” she whispered to the corpse of the rat, lying dead an inch from her face. It was gray and shining with filth. She might have been crying. She might have been lying in a puddle of her own tears. “Will they come for you? Will I eat them too? Will I swallow your babies whole?”

She tested the strength of her strait-waistcoat. It barely gave. Maybe after a few more rats, she could make another attempt.

And then what? Return to the Brood? Her actions had no doubt put them in danger. It didn’t seem likely she would be welcomed back.

She thought about lazing in bed with Carmen for hours. Sparring with Valentin, earning laughs and half-hearted admonishments. Sitting on a roof with Zahrah until sunup and watching Lizzy work. She hiccupped.

Another rat made its presence known. Poppy caught its tail in her foreteeth and reeled it in, slurping the appendage like a noodle. This time, she was more aware of the animal as she bit it. Its hard, wiry hairs bristled against her lips. Its plaintive squeaking rang as she drained it. Its dark eyes dimmed. Its unfortunately lovely little ears, like petals, like fairy cups, stopped their twitching. They were pink.

The blood was filthy, but it worked.

A specter lowered itself to the ground.

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