Sexpocalypse 1--The Bearers by K.D. Long - HTML preview

Chapter Eight

Blood is Life

Standing before Eva, Charles didn’t look her in the eyes as she snapped at him, “Tell me again what you saw!”

He’d told her three times already. Biting back a frustrated sigh, Charles told her once again, “The man, wearing a hazmat suit, stumbled into the camp and started babbling at the Chamber leader. Two associates and the leader managed to get the shield and hood off the man’s head. He wasn’t making any sense.”

After taking a deep breath, Charles continued, “The leader said something odd-I couldn’t understand him-and the man in the hazmat suit told him, ‘The King said that if you harm him, he will devour your mind. Make you like I am now.’ The man slipped back into the babbling idiot routine after that.”

Eva asked the same question she’d asked the last four times, “King. Who does he mean?”

His eyes narrowed. “Mistress, are you feeling okay?”

She gasped and said, “I can’t think straight.”

Charles did the only thing he knew to do. Grabbing the leftover meat which they’d cooked and some of the contaminated water, he fed Eva until she couldn’t eat any more.

That seemed to help. There was something nagging his mind but he couldn’t grasp it. They needed to do something else to make the conditions right for her to become pregnant. Unfortunately, Eva had seemed in a funk lately.

There were times that he felt linked with her and nature. Other long stretches of time, he only felt a cold wall from her. He didn’t know if she’d overloaded her system with hormones or what.

To him, that’s what it felt like. “Mistress, you must tell me how.”

“Our blood,” she weakly breathed.

Charles went to her and watched her bite him. Even though the ritual was thrilling and always left him with a hard cock, Charles really didn’t like biting or being bitten. He was actually horrified that part of vampire lore held some truth. Honestly, it made him hold out a bit of hope that all the rest was true too. Things barely remembered about eternity, humanity and a life that seemed almost too much like a fairy tale to be true. The past was a zephyr.

Lately, his faith had slipped. He knew it was the connection with Eva and nature. Evolution through their mutations was proven. What did this mean?

He was still trying to grapple with it. Currently, he nodded and urged while she drank, “I know that part, Mistress, but there is something else. I know there is but I just can’t . . .”

She grunted and pulled back from him. “Your incessant talking is making my stomach roll. Shut up!”

His mouth snapped shut. Charles wanted to tell her that whatever solution was buried in her mind would solve more than their mating issues. They would be linked together and she wouldn’t be such a bitch.

Her hand shot out and wrapped around his throat. She made a disgusted noise and growled, “You little sick fuck. I can hear your thoughts although I’m shielding mine. Remember that next time that you choose to call me, your Mistress, a bitch.”

Charles squeaked and tried to apologize. Eva sneered in his face, “I should snap your neck right now instead of waiting until we mate!”

His eyes widened as a premonition of his future leapt from her mind to his. He saw her gleefully killing him before the vision collapsed in on itself.

“Mis . . . Mistress, no!”

Charles tried to get away from her but she wouldn’t let go. When she finally did, he was at the point of almost passing out. Charles caught her snarl of frustration as she turned away from him.

He couldn’t tell what was wrong but knew something was out of whack. He needed to get to the system so that he could adjust her hormones. The problem had to be something along that path.

She stomped out of their cavern and exited to the outside. Charles massaged his throat while wondering for the hundredth time why Eva wasn’t mating with him. He felt the rage of a mutated chicken from her when she was around him.

He instinctively knew that she was supposed to be protective and territorial, not abusive and enraged. Something was going dreadfully wrong and he had to fix it. He’d seen the power that Eric wielded.

Eva should be doing the same. Yet, she was almost insane. Charles peeked out the door and didn’t see Eva anywhere in sight. He ran for the tunnels. This was his only chance to get to the computers.

Once inside the cool enclosed rocky tunnel, he breathed a sigh of relief and rushed through them toward his old stomping grounds. The computer sat where he’d last seen it.

He quickly booted the program and waited. When the menu page came up, he accessed their chips. As he had suspected, Eva’s hormone levels were off the charts. He lowered some of them and increased others.

He had no way of knowing that a mutated animal was yet another key to the mating puzzle. Deer flesh was preferable since they had previously consumed it. He was oblivious to Mika’s new abilities.

“Hello, Mr. Gallagher,” a male voice said from behind him.

Charles spun around to find the leader of the Chamber staring back at him from behind the shield of a hazmat suit. He opened his mouth to respond when an obviously mutated being, different yet similar in many ways, appeared out of thin air in front of him.

Before Charles could process that the being had poofed into existence, the thing jabbed Charles in the arm with a needle. He barked a painful sound and tried to fight the unknown substance that he actually felt invading his body.

A deep voice, tinged with disdain, growled, “Don’t fight it, Parasite. Just go to sleeeep.”

Charles was engulfed in darkness.

***

The Chamber leader, a short beady-eyed man with glasses who went by the simple name of Bob, looked through the safety glass at the sleeping preacher. He’d heard enough about this man and his secret exploits with Eva to make his head spin.

The preacher thought he was being crafty by stringently controlling his and Eva’s hygiachips. They’d found Eva writhing in the open field at the entrance of the cavern. A snake had bitten her. For some reason, her body was not fighting the venom as it normally would.

The only explanation that Bob could fathom was behind this phenomena was that Eva had found a mate. Unfortunately, that mate wasn’t around her at the time she’d been bitten by the deadly creature. The Bearers had a strange and symbiotic relationship with nature and her suffering showed something had most assuredly changed.

Without Eva’s blood, Charles would die and vice-versa. Ignorant of this factor, both mates were at risk of death. He remembered when they had awakened Charles and ordered him to suck the snake venom from Eva’s wound. He had balked right away, claiming that his beliefs would never allow him to let anything to do with a snake touch his tongue.

They had forced his head down to the wound and ordered him to comply by threat of force. Charles gave in, sucking the snake venom before spitting it out. Then, he would pray furiously before sucking another bit from her wound.

He repeated this process until he passed out. They abruptly gave him the contaminated cavern water. Eva awoke and began to fight. Two Performers, massive in stature and intimidating, appeared and forced her to bite Charles.

Wild with hunger, she appeared ready to tear the preacher apart. The pair bit and drank from each other. They started to mate, but Bob put a stop to their sexual petting.

There would be time for that. That time was just not at the moment. He needed to get a full blood panel done on both of them. Somewhere there was an answer.

Thinking back on that moment, he remembered both of the pair’s expressions and the way they had been staring at each other . . . as if they were communicating.

Reading each other’s minds, no doubt. Bob knew more about these mutations than he’d ever let anyone know. He had been behind the shaping of the Performers and he had been the one who directed the preacher on how to set the levels of the Bearers.

He was the only man in the Chamber that knew the full story behind the sectors. But, he would tell no one. It was his claim to power. Bob was not an old man and he clung to his omnipotence with the tenacity worthy of a legendary emperor of old.

This endeavor to watch the preacher mate with the Bearer, then study the baby’s growth, was purely clinical to Bob. He had mutated long ago also and part of his genius and power was his ability to become whatever he was expected to be. Bob was a very intelligent eunuch who read the future in the air.

He held zero respect for this preacher’s beliefs simply because he could read the truth out of the very air they breathed. Like the sectors that this chaotic earth now held, there were dimensions that an energy source crossed into and stayed. The body went back to the earth so as to be reborn into something else.

It was quite possible that the energy would seek this new life form out once again. In a sense, a new being is born. Simplified, it was just the chemical familiarity of the host body to the energy source.

He had read in the ether that Eric now carried a child. He also knew that the being grew rapidly and would be very powerful. Therefore he was bound to see to it that the other couple was successfully impregnated. Without symmetry, the world would tilt.

Bob knew that Eva would be the one carrying the child in this situation. The male human’s slight stature would not withstand the creature’s birth. It didn't matter. What mattered was striking a balance. These infants would grow into forces for which there was no history. Even Bob's prodigious set of capabilities couldn't divine what could happen. He only knew that there had to be one force to oppose another. Otherwise, at the very least, he would have a personal disaster he was unwilling to face. He would lose what he valued the most-his uniqueness amongst the inhabitants of the strange land that had Become and now was deeply in the After Times. The After Times had made him and he would guard their secrets.

Bob, amongst other delegates, was thrilled that new armies were being created.

For one, they could mold their army into anything they wanted. They simply wanted to control Eva and the preacher. They wanted to convince Charles to align with them. Eva would fall into place because of their deep connection.

Bob watched the preacher stir and then open his eyes. He hit an intercom and said, “Please relax, Charles. We don’t intend you any harm. On the contrary, I think we could find each other very beneficial.”

Charles blinked dumbly at him. Bob continued, “You must die at her hands or it will be impossible to create a being with Eva. Tell me, Charles, how confident are you that she will bring you back to life.”

Charles’ mouth opened before he shut it again. He finally shook his head, “I don’t . . . I don’t think she will. Eva has gone quite mad.”

Bob nodded, “I need you to listen to me closely, Charles. Eva is heavily drugged. Before we give her another dosage, you must mate with her. Eva must be the one to kill you and willingly bring you back. Without her willing cooperation, the babe will not live very long. For this to happen, you must show aggression and take control.” Bob paused to let this information sink in before continuing, “The Bearer female is very independent, Charles. Your show of dominance is required so that she will accept your energy.”

“I-I just want . . .”

“I know what you want, Charles, but that no longer matters. You are beyond the point of death. You must put your human beliefs aside now. You see, Charles, if Eva does not revive you, then I will.”

Bob raised a syringe of venom that his medical delegates had extracted from Eva when they’d first brought her to them. “Trust me, Charles. You must father a race to fight Eric’s. If not, we will all perish and there will be no one left on our side to revive anyone.”

Confusion flooded the former priest’s face. Bob ignored it and went on, “I know you are groggy now. You must eat. Afterward, you will be taken to her. Good luck.”

Without another word, Bob hit the button on the panel that turned the window back to a one-way mirror on Charles’ side. He turned to a delegate and nodded. “Make sure he eats the entire thing.”

A deer heart had been prepared so that both Charles and Eva could eat it. Bob thought it was a shame that the female Bearer had almost been driven mad by the blast of hormones. It had been an act of ignorance that should never have been allowed to take place.

If the delegate he’d sent had gotten to the computer before Eric had found him, Eva may have been okay. As it was, Bob had ordered one of the best female Concubines on their medical team to watch over her.

Currently, he studied Charles eating the deer heart. Without access to Eva’s blood and having been separated from her for so long, Charles’ mind was dulled. Bob knew that, when the pair were reunited, Charles would regain strength of mind and body but it had to be soon.

Unlike the other pair, Charles seemed more resistant to transformation. It was unlikely that this was based on his physical make up. A far more likely scenario was that his residual 'conscience' was thwarting his changes. A human, especially one imbued with that quaint notion of fate and faith such as Charles held dear, always wanted to stay human. It was beyond Bob why this was so. He had enjoyed every exhilarating moment that led to his present state. Every mutation, every cell change, every new power that seeped through his once human veins had been welcomed by the mediocre real estate salesman that he used to be.

He needed the preacher to be stronger than ever. Their future depended on it.

***

To be continued in The Performers, Part 2 of Sexpocalypse

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