Chapter 6: Agnes tries out her new gift
Agnes stood for a long moment in the silent basement, listening to the new symphony of her existence. The hum of the furnace in the corner was a bass note. The skittering of a mouse in the archives was a crisp snare. But above it, pulsing through the floors like a subterranean river, was the sound she craved. A heartbeat. Steady, strong, and deliciously alone.
She ran a hand over her own body, a thrill jolting through her. Her skin was smooth, firm, untouched by the decades she had accrued. Her muscles thrummed with latent power. The dull aches in her lower back, the constant stiffness in her shoulders—gone. Replaced by a single, focused ache between her legs and behind her newly sharpened canines.
She bent, picking up her torn blouse and cardigan. The fabrics felt cheap, pitiful. She dropped them again, leaving them in a heap on the cold stone. Naked, she was magnificent. This was her uniform now.
The scent guided her. Up the metal-grated stairs, through the dimly lit lower stacks. It was a young scent—clean sweat, bergamot shampoo, the cloying sweetness of energy drinks, and underneath, the rich, heady copper of vitality. The hunger twisted in her gut, a demanding fist.
She found her prey in the Classics alcove, a secluded nook of carrels beneath a stained-glass window depicting some forgotten myth. The student was a boy—no, a young man, maybe nineteen, with tousled dark hair and the intense, narrow focus of someone battling a deadline. Textbooks were spread around him, his laptop glowing. He typed furiously, fingers flying.
Agnes paused in the deep shadow between two high shelves, watching. He was beautiful in a mortal, fragile way. The corded tendons in his neck stood out as he concentrated. He took a swig from a can, and his throat worked. She could see the blood moving there.
She knew every floorboard in this library, every squeak and groan. She stepped out, not with the timid shuffle of Agnes Finch, Librarian, but with the silent, predatory grace of a panther. The soles of her feet, sensitive to every grain of dust, made no sound.
He didn’t notice her until she was beside his carrel, leaning against it. He jumped, a hand flying to his chest. “Jesus! You scared me.” His eyes widened, taking in her nudity, the impossible youth of her face, the silver glint in her eyes. Confusion, not fear, came first. “Are you… are you okay? Do you need help?”
“I need something,” Agnes said, her voice a low, velveteen purr she had never possessed. “You’re working very hard.”
“Uh, yeah. Paper on Ovid. Due tomorrow.” He blinked, trying and failing to keep his eyes from roaming her body. His cheeks flushed. The scent of his arousal bloomed, subtle but unmistakable, mixing with the richer blood-scent. It was an aphrodisiac to her.
“Metamorphoses,” she said, coming closer, rounding the carrel. “My favorite. All those stories of gods taking mortal lovers. Of beautiful, terrifying transformations.” She placed a hand on his shoulder. He was warm. So wonderfully, feverishly warm. “You look tense. Let me help you.”
“I really should…” His protest died as her fingers trailed down his arm. His blood was singing to her now, a siren’s call in her veins.
She leaned in, her lips close to his ear. “Shhh. The library is closed. No rules tonight.” She took his hand and placed it on her bare breast. He gasped, his fingers stiff at first, then curling, his thumb finding her nipple. “See? That’s better than Ovid, isn’t it?”
He was hard. She could smell it, see the tent in his jeans. His rational mind was being drowned in a tide of shock and primal excitement. This was a fantasy, a stress-induced hallucination. He surrendered to it. “Who are you?” he breathed.
“Your reward,” she whispered, and kissed him.
It wasn’t a gentle kiss. It was a claiming. She plunged her tongue into his mouth, tasting the sugar of his drink, the heat of him. Her hands went to his hair, gripping tightly. He moaned into her, his own hands growing bold, sliding down her back to cup her ass, pulling her against the hard ridge of his cock. The friction was exquisite.
“I want you,” he panted, breaking the kiss, his eyes wild.
“I know,” she said. “But not here.Too exposed. I know a private place.”
He nodded, a frantic, eager motion. He started gathering his things.
“Leave it,” she commanded, her voice leaving no room for argument. He froze, then obeyed. She took his hand, his skin burning against her cool palm, and led him back toward the stairs.
The journey down was a blur for him, a stumble of lust. For her, it was a slow, savored procession. She watched the pulse in his neck quicken. She heard the rushing of his blood.
In the basement storeroom, amid the ghost of her own transformation, she pushed him gently against the same reading desk where she had been broken and remade. The cool wood hit his back. “Please,” he said, fumbling with his belt buckle.
She knocked his hands away. “My turn.”
She undressed him with deliberate, almost reverent slowness. Each inch of exposed skin was a revelation. His chest was smooth, his stomach taut. When she finally freed his cock, it sprang up, thick and flushed, leaking at the tip. She smiled, a genuine expression of pleasure.
“You’re so beautiful,” he said, staring at her.
“So are you,” she replied, and it was true. He was a feast laid out before her.
She dropped to her knees. He cried out, a sharp, choked sound, as she took the entire length of him into her mouth in one smooth, deep-throating descent. His taste was salty, musky, profoundly human. She could feel the blood pumping in the veins beneath the silken skin of his shaft. She bobbed her head, using a speed and pressure no mortal throat could manage, her tongue working the frenulum.
“Oh fuck, oh fuck…” He chanted the words, his hands gripping the edge of the desk, knuckles white. His hips began to piston, fucking her mouth in desperate, shallow thrusts. “I’m gonna… I’m close…”
She pulled off with a wet pop. “Not yet.” She stood, turned him around, and bent him over the desk, mirroring her own earlier position. He offered no resistance, panting, delirious with need.
She ran a hand over the curve of his ass, then slid a finger between his cheeks, finding his tight, untouched hole. He tensed. “Relax,” she murmured, spitting onto her fingers, using the slickness to press against the puckered ring. She worked one finger in, then two, stretching him. He whimpered, a mix of pain and dizzying pleasure.
Her own need was a white-hot coil now. She positioned herself behind him, the head of his cock slick with her saliva guiding her. In one brutal, ravishing thrust, she sheathed herself fully onto him.
The scream that tore from his throat echoed her own from earlier. It was a sound of pure, agonizing ecstasy. She fucked him with a ruthless, driving rhythm, her pelvis slamming against his ass with a wet, meaty sound. Each thrust drove his cock into her, sending jolts of fire through her belly, but her true focus was the beautiful, throbbing artery in his neck just inches from her face.
“You feel so good,” she snarled, her refined accent gone, replaced by something guttural and ancient. “So fucking tight and warm. You’re mine. This is mine.”
She could feel his orgasm building, the tautness in his balls, the frantic clench of her muscles around his invading cock. It fueled her. She leaned over his back, her breasts pressing against him, and sank her fangs into the juncture of his neck and shoulder.
The taste was volcanic. It exploded across her tongue—youth, ambition, frustration, the sheer life of him. As she drew the first deep, pulling swallow, he came. His body convulsed, his cock spasming inside her, pumping hot cum deep into her cunt. His scream became a long, guttural sob of release, merging with the sensation of his life being drained.
She drank as he pulsed inside her, riding the dual waves of his death and her own climax. Her own orgasm ripped through her, a silent, internal detonation that tightened every muscle and drew his blood down her throat even faster. It was a union, a complete and utter consumption. He gave her everything.
When it was over, she slumped against him for a moment, sated. Then she withdrew, letting his limp body slide to the floor.
She looked at him, at the peaceful emptiness on his face. The hunger was gone, replaced by a deep, humming satisfaction. She felt stronger, faster, more real. She licked the last drops of blood from her lips, then from her fingers.
Methodically, she gathered his clothes, his bag, his books. She stoked the old coal furnace in the corner, its iron belly hungry for a different kind of fuel. One by one, she fed his possessions into the flames. Last, she lifted his body. It was light. She held him for a moment, a strange tenderness passing through her.
“Thank you,” she whispered to the shell, an echo of her own gratitude to her makers.
She consigned him to the fire. The flames roared, consuming the evidence of her first, glorious hunt. The scent of burning paper and flesh filled the room, but soon, even that was gone, replaced by ash.
Agnes stood before the glowing furnace, her skin gilded by the flames. She was no longer the prim librarian, the shusher, the rule-keeper. She was something else entirely. And the university, with its thousands of beating hearts, was her new, personal collection.
She climbed the stairs, leaving the heat of the furnace behind. Up in the silent, moon-washed library, she walked to a window. In the distance, she saw two slender figures crossing the quad, moving with predatory purpose toward the fraternity houses. Laura and Ellie. Her sisters. Her mentors.
Agnes placed a hand on the cool glass and smiled. She had a lot to learn. And an eternity to learn it. The hunt, she now knew, was just beginning. And every heartbeat in the dark was a story waiting for its final, bloody metamorphosis.