The Font (18 page)

Propping her tiny hands on Elisha’s chest, Naya raised her hips, unsheathing his length until only the head of his cock remained inside.  She pressed down, taking him back in, biting her lips in reaction to the stomach-curling friction.

“That’s it.  That’s it,” Elisha groaned.  His hands reached to cup her breasts, rubbing, massaging
,
as she rose and fell over him.  “You feel so good, my beauty, my beloved, my Naya.”

Naya found that spot again, that cluster of nerves that like the pressure best.  She moved to rub him there, her jaw dropping open to warble a happy sound as her insides melted.  Moving in small circles on the downstroke, feeling the firmness of his groin against her softness.  Up again, crying softly to be nearly emptied of him, only to thrust herself down, spearing her own body on the livid strength of him.

Pistoning faster.  Harder.  Finding a rhythm that lit her insides until she thought she must be aglow with the fire that licked from her loins to her breasts where Elisha’s hands massaged.  He was actually breathing, each pant coming in grunts as she worked to bring them both to ecstasy. 

Naya had never felt anything, known anything
as
raw as this joining.  So alive.  The damp sounds of sex, of gasped breaths, of the creaking bed.  The scent of her blood and desire, of his dry leaf smell deepening to that of fragrant, verdant earth.  The feel of Elisha beneath and inside her, of the demands of her own flesh to ravish and ravage, to sate and be sated.

Moving ever quicker as the first spasms of the consuming elation trembled her belly.  Her world narrowed as she felt the storm rushing in on her, thundering through her sex.  Lightning flashes of ecstasy broke through her, making every hair on her body rise.  And here it was, breaking through her in a cataclysm of bursting tempest, beating her mercilessly from the inside, sweeping aside all conscious thought as the gale ruptured.

Elisha seized her hips, yanking her up and down until his control fractured.  His cries joined hers, adding to the din of howling passion, of roaring completion.  

Like a delicate flower whose stem has been bent by tumultuous winds, Naya wilted over him, her limp body falling onto him.  His arms circled her, and she listened to his heart gallop within his chest for a few minutes until it remembered the body it inhabited no longer required its work.  In the blissful silence that followed, Naya heard the first bird outside invite the dawn.

“Morning is coming, Elisha.”  She felt like weeping to lose him even for the few hours of daylight.

He sat up, and they untangled themselves from each other.  Naya was made a little glad to see he seemed as reluctant as she to part.  His gaze never left her as he pulled pants, socks, and
boots
on.  His bloodied shirt was an utter ruin.

Elisha held out his arms, and Naya rushed to be held again.  “Did you see the building with the children’s playground equipment for sale on our way here?  Right off the interstate highway?” he asked her.

She nodded.  “Next to the RV dealership.  Yes.  It’s only about a mile away.”

“That’s where I’ll rest for the day.” 

He kissed her gently and handed her
a pocket
knife. 
She placed it on the nightstand. 

Elisha gave her a steady gaze. 
“I fear how quickly Heriolf might find you when the sun sets, especially if his human spies discover you before he rises.  They will be commanded to not harm you, but you have no such restrictions against them.  Promise me you will defend yourself, Naya.”

“I will.”  Her stomach curdled a little at the thought of harming, perhaps killing another human being, but Elisha was right.  Falling into Heriolf’s hands would harm so many more, mortal and vampire alike.
  She would have to pray it would not come to her using the knife.

“Come to me before nightfall.  I want you right there when I rise so I can protect you if necessary.”

“All right.  Elisha, be careful.”

They kissed as if they may never touch again.  Tears tracked down Naya’s cheeks, but more birds were calling now, warning of the coming sun.  When Elisha opened the door, the sky was already turning reddish-orange with the brute’s arrival.

Naya watched him lift into the air, and then she was alone.  She’d never felt
as
isolated as she did with Elisha gone
from her side
.

She turned, closing the door and locking it securely.  Vampires could not get in without an invitation, but their human slaves were another matter entirely.  With daylight coming they would be on the hunt
.  She hoped
tracking her down with only their paltry five senses would make it nearly impossible for them to find her. 

Naya went to the bathroom.  The paint in the room was old and peeling, but it
otherwise
looked very clean
with the sink and bathtub gleaming unblemished whiteness.  T
here were small bottles of shampoo and conditioner, along with a tiny bar of soap sealed in plastic.  She gratefully ran the tub full of water as hot as she could stand it.  It had been days since she bathed, and she wondered that Elisha had found her attractive at all.  The memory of their last coupling made her smile even as she ached to have his body next to hers once more.

             
Naya
sank into the
steaming
tub with gratitude, sliding all the way down to cover her face and drench her hair.  She came up spluttering and reached for the coarse white washcloth to scrub moisture from her eyes.

             
As she washed, Naya thought.  Heriolf would never give up his search for her as long as he lived.  She entertained no illusions that he wouldn’t kill Elisha, not even if she made the ill-advised deal to give herself to the vampire
king
in exchange for Elisha’s life. 

“But maybe it would buy Elisha enough time to get a safe distance away,” she mused out loud.  She sighed, knowing it was no real solution.

The only true option was for Heriolf to suffer final death.  “Or for me to die,”
Naya
whispered.  She shuddered.  Elisha’s cohorts were determined for that to happen.

The irony wasn’t lost on her.  After years of emptiness, of an almost ghostly existence in the vampire world, vibrant life had been offered to her.  Life and love.  And with these remarkable gifts came the threat of death, both for her and the man
who had brought
her out of her shadow world existence.

Naya finished her bath and turned on the shower to wash her long hair.   During this and the toweling off afterwards, her thoughts ricocheted back and forth, looking for some way out of the labyrinth her elfin blood had placed her in.  Her mind
lurched from one wild scheme to the next
, struggling to find
the sure
path that would allow her to remain at Elisha’s side without
the
fear and jealousy of other vampires.  Without others of elf descent around to even the playing field for all, she couldn’t discern how she and her vampire lover would be permitted to continue.

As she turned off the lights and crawled into the bed, no solution presented itself.  Naya lay looking towards the ceiling, the dim glow of the rising sun creeping around the window’s heavy curtains.

“I’ll have to trust you, Elisha,” she told her absent love.  “I have to have faith you’ll destroy the monster and free us all somehow, because I simply can’t find the way.”

His dark earth aroma was all around her, as if to say it would all be all right.  With the scent of their earlier lovemaking soothing her worries, Naya drifted off to sleep.

* * * *

Naya woke mid-afternoon.  She sighed to see her dress stained with dirt and shook leaves and twigs off it as best she could
before dressing
. 
She put on her coat, and after several minutes of internal arguments, she picked up the pocketknife in one sweating hand.  She unfolded the blade from the handle and hid it in a pocket.  Clutching it out of sight in her fist,
she ventured outside.  No human slave waited to spring on her, and she made her way to a nearby truck stop.
  As she walked alongside the road, she looked all around, convinced she would be attacked at any moment.

             
Naya relaxed when she stepped into the warmth of the truck stop’s main building. 
The convenience store part of the establishment had souvenir tee shirts and even
sweat
pants emblazoned with ‘Savannah, GA’.  With the leftover money Elisha had glamoured from his victim on River Street, Naya purchased the clothing as well as a sandwich and potato chips. 

             
She returned to the motel room
, shuddering with relief to lock the door behind her. 
It was a delight to shed the filthy dress and change
into the
cheap
but clean clothes. 
Naya
munched on her meal, drank water from the tap, and overall felt
restored
and halfway optimistic.  Then she settled in to watch television.  
Still exhausted from her days on the run, s
he dozed off
two hours later
watching a show about humpback whales.

             
When Naya awoke, the room was dark but for the flickering blue of the television depicting lionesses stalking gazelle.  Naya sat up in the bed with a gasp and ran to the window, pushing the heavy curtains aside. 

The sun was almost down, only a sliver of its baleful red left over the horizon.  Elisha would rise within minutes.  So would Heriolf.

Naya jammed her feet into her slippers, snatched on her coat, and clutched Elisha’s knife within her pocket, the flashlight in her other hand.  Forcing herself to take deep breaths to steady her
suddenly galloping heart
, she stepped out of the room.

Again, no one confronted her.  Moving quickly, Naya crossed the parking lot and walked fast down the road that would take her to the playground equipment dealership where Elisha said he would be.

Streetlights and headlights of passing cars illuminated her
.  Even
as the sun gave up its claim on the world, Naya began to feel
more
exposed
than ever as she walked the shoulder of the road
.  The woods lining the opposite side beckoned, their dark shelter inviting her to take cover there.  Naya crossed the road after an old truck blatted by and stepped into the trees.

Naya had always loved the woods.  She felt at home among the trees, away from the trappings of civilization.  Her parents had been the same, she thought.  Her father had worked for the
Department of Natural Resources
and her mother had been a wilderness guide.  It made her wonder if the love for nature was part of being of elfin blood.  The old man in the swamp had lived a pretty wild existence too, it had seemed. 
This environment certainly seemed more like home than the wild garishness of River Street.

The scent of exhaust
from the nearby road
poisoned the rich scents of pine and earth.  The nearby interstate traffic hummed, an irritant of noise trying to drown out the call of frogs and crickets.  Through the trees, Naya spotted the off ramp, a tributary feeding vehicles from the mighty river of the expressway to the smaller stream
of the exit.  Busy people rushed
here and there
, only worried about getting somewhere faster.  Precious few
ever
notic
ed
the stand of trees that harbored the natural bits of the world not yet buried under asphalt and concrete. 
Such blindness was a curse, but the typical human’s oblivion contained a blessing as well.  The majority were blissfully ignorant of the unseen dangers that night brought.  N
ow that the sun was down, killers had begun flying the skies overhead, seeking victims.

Seeking her.

Naya walked easily within the pines and palmettos, the rolling ground underfoot unfurling in a ribbon of path for her.  Between the silent sentinels of the trees she saw the distant glow of businesses about a quarter of a mile away.  Illuminated signs flaunted themselves, unabashedly showing their wares to draw the needy into their clutches. 
Richard Clint’s RV World
shouted one over a herd of shining motorhomes.  
Playtime Recreational Supplies
invited the next, displaying fortresses of swings and slides and climbing gear in its bald light.  Naya’s pulse quickened to see how close she was to Elisha’s resting place.  Was he coming out of the ground now, looking for her?

Naya’s pace became a trot.  She didn’t worry about exposed roots tripping her or palmettos slicing her exposed ankles.  As always, the forest seemed to make way for her passage, its environs accepting her as its own.

The RV dealership was directly across the street from her when three dark shapes dripped down from the sky.  One landed right in front of her, and Naya had an instant of recognizing the
bronze
face of Elisha’s co-conspirator Mariel before the flashlight was knocked out of her hand.  It thudded to the ground, and its illumination winked off.  The dry leaf odor of vampire was everywhere.