Chapter 9: The Coven Grows.
Clara Wilson’s world was one of quiet, meticulous order. The soft shush of a date stamp, the crisp alignment of a returned book on the cart, the satisfying weight of the old keys on her lanyard. She loved it. The library was a sanctuary of predictable rhythm, and Head Librarian Agnes Finch was its revered, if stern, high priestess. Lately, though, the rhythm had changed.
It was in the silence. The main library was empty, past closing, but Clara had stayed to finish the inter-library loan logs. She’d seen them pass the circulation desk ten minutes ago: Agnes and Brenda, arm in arm, moving with a synchronized, predatory grace that was entirely new. Brenda, especially, was different. Gone was the slightly anxious associate; in her stride was a dark, humming confidence. They’d disappeared into the staff room and hadn’t come out.
The hum of the lights was suddenly oppressive. Clara told herself she was just returning a misplaced volume to the staff room shelf. It was a lie, and her pounding heart knew it. She approached the door, which was slightly ajar. A sliver of yellow light cut across the dim corridor.
From within, she heard a low, throaty sound that was nothing like any sound she’d ever associated with either woman. It was a groan of pure, unadulterated pleasure, stripped of all propriety.
Her hand trembled as she pushed the door open another inch.
The sight inside froze the air in her lungs.
Agnes was perched on the edge of the large, scarred oak table usually covered in coffee mugs and union newsletters. Her prim skirt was hiked up around her waist, her legs spread, her head thrown back against the corkboard with its outdated safety posters. Brenda knelt on the linoleum floor between her thighs, her face buried in Agnes’s cunt. Brenda’s hands gripped Agnes’s hips, her fingers digging into the pale flesh, holding her in place as she feasted.
It was savage. It was wet. Clara could hear the obscene, slick sounds of Brenda’s tongue and lips working with furious intensity. Agnes’s hand was fisted in Brenda’s formerly neat bun, not pushing her away, but grinding her face deeper.
“Yes, right there, you hungry bitch,” Agnes hissed, her voice a ragged scratch. “Lick it. Clean it all up.”
Brenda moaned in response, the vibration drawing another sharp cry from Agnes. Brenda’s own free hand was between her legs, frantically working at the front of her own trousers, her hips jerking against her own fingers. The room smelled of sex, a musky, electric scent that overpowered the coffee and old paper.
Clara’s gasp was a tiny, involuntary thing. But it was enough.
Agnes’s head snapped up. Her eyes, usually sharp and cold behind her glasses, were now pitch black, glowing with an inner fire. They locked onto Clara’s through the crack in the door. A smile stretched her blood-flushed lips, revealing a glimpse of sharp, white fangs.
“Don’t lurk in the hallway, Clara,” Agnes called out, her voice regaining its composure, though her chest still heaved. “We’re discussing your performance review. Come in.”
Paralyzed, Clara could only stare. Brenda slowly pulled back, wiping her glistening mouth and chin with the back of her hand. She looked over her shoulder at Clara, her expression one of dark amusement. She didn’t bother to adjust her own clothing or stop the slow, rubbing motion of her hand between her legs.
“Come on in, intern,” Brenda said, her voice husky. “The door’s open.”
Mechanically, Clara pushed the door open and stepped inside. The door clicked shut behind her, the sound final. The sexual heat in the room was a physical wall.
“We’ve been impressed with your work ethic, Clara,” Agnes said, as casually as if they were at the weekly budget meeting. She made no move to cover herself. Her bare flesh was a shocking, intimate display of power. “Meticulous. Discreet. You have a future here.”
“I… I don’t understand,” Clara whispered, her eyes darting from Agnes’s exposed body to Brenda’s predatory smile.
“The university is a corpse,” Agnes stated, sliding off the table. She straightened her skirt with a terrifying normality. “It shuffles along, feeding on youth and spitting out debt. We’ve found a better way to feed.” She took a step closer, and Clara caught a new scent—cool, like stone, and beneath it, the unmistakable copper tang she’d smelled once when she’d cut her finger on a paper edge. But this was richer. Deeper.
“Brenda has recently accepted a… permanent promotion,” Agnes continued. She stood before Clara, close enough to touch. “We have an opening on the senior staff. The benefits are exceptional. Eternal. Would you like it?”
Clara’s mind was a scramble of denial. Vampires. They were saying they were vampires. The fangs, the unearthly eyes, the sheer terrifying energy rolling off them—it was impossible. It was real.
“What… what would I have to do?” The question left her lips before she could stop it.
Agnes’s smile widened. She reached out and tucked a strand of Clara’s red hair behind her ear. Her touch was freezing. “You would have to die. Just a little. And then you would wake up. Strong. Hungry. Free.” Her gaze drifted to the pulse frantically fluttering in Clara’s throat. “You would never be overlooked again. You would never feel small in a staff meeting. You would take what you want.”
Brenda stood up, finally buttoning her trousers. She came to stand beside Agnes, a unified front. “The first feed is… like nothing else,” Brenda said, her eyes distant, savoring the memory. “You feel everything. Their life, their fear, their stupid little hopes… it’s all yours. You drink it down and it makes you a god.”
The offer hung in the sex-thick air. It was monstrous. It was also, in a part of Clara she’d always suppressed, profoundly alluring. The thought of power. Of never being the timid, red-headed intern again. Of belonging to this terrifying, intimate sisterhood.
“How?” Clara breathed, the word barely audible.
Agnes moved with that impossible speed, a blur that ended with Clara’s back against the closed door. One cold hand cupped her jaw, tilting her head to expose her neck. The other hand slid between Clara’s legs, over her sensible cotton trousers, applying a firm, knowing pressure. Clara jerked, a shock of unwanted, electrifying sensation jolting through her.
“You say yes,” Agnes murmured against her ear. “And then Brenda and I will show you. We’ll break that sweet, shy body of yours and rebuild it into something beautiful. You’ll come harder than you ever have, and you’ll scream as you die. And then you’ll be ours.”
Clara looked past Agnes’s shoulder to Brenda. Brenda’s eyes were glowing with that same dark hunger, her fangs fully extended. She licked her lips.
The old world—the world of stamps and shushes and eternal politeness—slipped away. In its place was this hot, dark, promising void.
Tears welled in Clara’s eyes, but she didn’t try to pull away. Her heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic drum announcing an end and a beginning.
“Yes,” she whispered.
Agnes’s smile was a victorious, terrible thing. “Good girl.”
“Good girl.” The words were still freezing in the air when Agnes’s mouth crashed onto Clara’s. The kiss was not comforting; it was a violation and a promise, cold lips and the dangerous prick of fangs against soft tissue. Clara whimpered, her hands fluttering at her sides before clutching Agnes’s shoulders, the wool of her cardigan rough under her fingers.
Agnes broke the kiss, a string of saliva connecting them. “Get her clothes off,” she told Brenda, her black eyes never leaving Clara’s dazed ones. Brenda’s hands were immediate and efficient, popping buttons on Clara’s blouse, yanking her trousers and underwear down her thighs in one rough pull. The cool air of the staff room hit Clara’s skin, raising goosebumps.
“See? Already so eager for us,” Brenda muttered, her hands roaming over Clara’s bare hips, squeezing the soft flesh there. She bit a kiss onto Clara’s shoulder, teeth scraping. Clara trembled, a fresh wave of that electrifying shame coursing through her, pooling hot between her legs.
Agnes guided her away from the door, back toward the heavy oak table. “On your back,” she commanded, and Clara obeyed, the wood cold and unforgiving against her spine. Her red hair fanned out around her head like a martyr’s halo. She was utterly exposed, spread open under the fluorescent lights.
Brendra climbed onto the table, straddling Clara’s face. The damp, musky scent of her filled Clara’s nostrils. “Taste what you’re getting into, intern,” Brenda said, lowering herself. “Eat my fucking cunt.” Clara’s eyes widened, but the protest died as Brenda settled her weight. The heat was overwhelming. Clara’s tongue darted out, a timid flick against Brenda’s folds.
“More,” Agnes demanded from somewhere near her feet. A cold hand slapped Clara’s inner thigh, making her jolt. “Use your whole mouth. Make her come.” Clara obeyed, driven by a new, desperate hunger. She opened wider, licking and sucking with a frantic energy she didn’t recognize in herself. The taste was bitter and complex, layered with Agnes’s own tang from earlier.
As Clara worked, Agnes’s hands parted her legs further. A cold, slick finger, not flesh but something smoother, probed at Clara’s entrance. It was the cap of a pen from the table. “You need to be opened up,” Agnes said clinically, and pushed it inside. Clara cried out, the sound muffled by Brenda’s body, the intrusion shocking and full. Agnes worked it in and out, a crude, stretching rhythm.
“Fuck, she’s a natural,” Brenda gasped, grinding harder against Clara’s mouth. Her thighs tightened around Clara’s ears. Clara could feel Brenda’s climax building, the muscles fluttering. She redoubled her efforts, lapping at Brenda’s clit, drinking the wetness that flowed.
Brenda came with a sharp cry, her body shuddering. She collapsed forward, then slid off to the side, panting. She looked down at Clara’s flushed, wet face. “Your turn, sweetheart.”
Agnes discarded the pen. She replaced it with her mouth, her tongue long and impossibly cold. It lashed at Clara’s clit, then dove inside her with reptilian speed. Clara screamed, back arching off the table. The sensation was unbearable—a icy, coiling pleasure that felt like it was scraping her nerves raw.
“Please,” Clara sobbed, unsure what she was begging for.
“This is just the beginning,” Agnes said, lifting her head. Her lips glistened. “The turning is in the blood. And the climax.” She motioned to Brenda, who swiftly moved down, pinning Clara’s hips to the table. Agnes lowered her face to Clara’s throat, her fangs a beautiful, terrifying finality.
The bite was pure, piercing fire. Clara’s body seized as the pain exploded, then just as quickly mutated into a deep, throbbing ecstasy. Agnes drank, and with each pull, Clara felt a part of her life force draining away, a dizzying, euphoric lightness replacing it. At the same moment, Brenda’s fingers found Clara’s clit, rubbing hard, fast circles.
It was too much. The draining, the frantic stimulation, the cold tongue still working inside her. Clara shattered. Her orgasm ripped through her, a silent, wide-mouthed scream contorting her features as her body bucked against its restraints. Colors bled at the edges of her vision. The world faded, the hum of the lights dissolving into a distant roar.
As the last of her human life ebbed, a new hunger awoke—sharp, undeniable, and deeply sensual. Agnes pulled away, her mouth smeared crimson. She bit her own wrist, opening a dark, glistening line. “Finish it,” she whispered, pressing the wound to Clara’s lips.
Clara accepted eagerly. She latched onto Agnes’s wrist with a newborn’s desperation, but the sound she made was a guttural, needy growl. The blood was not what she expected. It was cold lightning, power and memory and dark desire flooding her mouth, burning down her throat, resurrecting her.
She drank until Agnes pulled away. Clara lay on the table, gasping. Her senses were a riot. She could hear the scuttle of a spider in the far corner ceiling, smell the iron in the dust, feel the grain of the wood beneath her with microscopic clarity. And the hunger—it was a clawing, multifaceted thing. For more blood. For the feeling of a body under her own new strength. For everything.
She sat up, movements fluid and impossibly quick. She looked at her own hands, pale and looking stronger. Then she looked at her two makers, her red hair tangled around a face now marked with predatory grace and a dark, knowing smile. “What now?” Clara asked, her voice a lower, richer instrument.
Agnes smiled, wiping Clara’s blood from her chin. “Now,” she said, “we go upstairs. The late-night study group in periodicals should be winding down.”
Clara licked her own new, sharp canines, tasting the remnants of Agnes’s power on them. A laugh bubbled up from her new, cold core. It was a hungry sound.
It was a hungry sound. The three of them stood in the wreckage of the staff room, the air thick with the smell of sex and copper. Clara’s new senses mapped the world in hyper-detail: the flaking beige paint, the dust motes dancing in the fluorescent glare, the frantic, living heartbeat of the library above them.
“Do you feel it?” Brenda asked, watching her. “The pull.”
Clara nodded. It was a thrumming in her teeth, a directionless craving that tightened her stomach. She could feel them—warm, pulsing dots of life somewhere beyond the ceiling. “Upstairs.”
“Five of them,” Agnes said, tilting her head as if listening to a faint song. “In the periodicals alcove. All so very dedicated to their studies.” She licked a last spot of Clara’s blood from her thumb. “Let’s go.”
They moved. Not as humans moved, but as shadows unspooled, a silent rush up the back staircase that left the air undisturbed. Clara marveled at the fluid power in her limbs, the way the world slowed to accommodate her speed. They paused in the second-floor stacks, shrouded in darkness, looking down into the soft pool of lamplight in the reading nook.
Five students. Two women, three men, surrounded by open laptops and highlighters. One of the men, lanky with overgrown curls, was arguing about a political theory text. His carotid artery jumped with his passion.
“That one talks too much,” Brenda whispered, her breath cold on Clara’s ear. “I want to taste his lecture.”
Agnes’s hand settled on the small of Clara’s back. “Your first feed is personal. It’s not just blood. It’s taking their momentum, their spark. Choose. Who’s yours?”
Clara’s gaze swept the group. It landed on a young woman with a severe black bob, biting her lip as she typed. She was quiet, intense, vibrating with a focused anxiety Clara recognized intimately. The old Clara. “Her,” Clara breathed.
“Good,” Agnes said. “We’ll cause a distraction. You take her into the history stacks. Make it last. Savor the transition from fear to euphoria. It’s the best part.”
Brenda was already moving, a ripple of displaced air. She knocked a heavy anthology from a high shelf. It crashed to the floor twenty feet from the study group. Heads snapped up.
“What the hell?” the talkative guy said, standing.
“Probably a rat,” his friend muttered, but he looked nervous.
“I’ll check,” Brenda said, stepping sweetly into the light. Her clothes were still disheveled, her lips swollen. She looked like a student who’d been in a passionate tryst. “I heard it too.”
The group relaxed, visibly. The talkative one grinned at her. “Having a better night than us, by the looks of it.”
Brenda laughed, low and inviting. She drifted toward them, a predator entering a watering hole. “You have no idea.” She put a hand on the talkative one’s chest, pushing him playfully back into his chair. “So, political theory, huh? I always found it… dry.”
It was Agnes’s cue. She walked forward, the clicking of her sensible heels suddenly authoritative. “The library is closed. You all need to leave.” Her voice was the old Agnes Finch, dripping with impatient authority.
The protest started immediately, a chorus of “We’re allowed!” and “We have access!” The severe young woman with the black bob gathered her things, frustration on her face. She turned to retreat into the stacks, seeking another quiet corner.
Clara was already there.
She stepped from between the towering shelves on 19th-century European history as the student, Lila, according to her notebook, rounded the corner. Clara moved fast, one cold hand clamping over Lila’s mouth, the other snaking around her waist. She dragged her backward, deeper into the canyon of books.
Lila’s body went rigid, a muffled scream vibrating against Clara’s palm. The smell of her fear was pungent, sour. It made Clara’s new fangs throb.
“Shhh,” Clara murmured into her ear, pulling her into a small, dark cul-de-sac where the library stored broken microfilm readers. “It’s all right. It will feel better than you can imagine.”
Lila struggled, her elbow connecting hard with Clara’s ribs. The impact was nothing. Clara spun her around and pinned her against the wall, ancient books digging into her back. She saw the moment Lila recognized her—the intern from the circulation desk. Confusion warred with terror in her wide eyes.
“You?” Lila gasped.
“Not anymore,” Clara said. And she kissed her.
It was nothing like the kiss from Agnes. This was dominance. Clara forced her tongue past Lila’s lips, cold and demanding. At the same time, she ripped open Lila’s blouse with a single pull, buttons pinging off the metal shelving. She cupped a small, soft breast, her thumb scraping over the nipple. Lila moaned, a sound of terror and shocking, unwanted arousal.
Clara broke the kiss, trailing her mouth down Lila’s jaw to her frantically beating throat. “Please don’t,” Lila whimpered, even as her hips gave a tiny, involuntary jerk.
“You’ll thank me,” Clara promised. She bit down.
The pain was a bright, sharp shock for them both. Lila’s body arched, a strangled cry caught in her throat. Then the venom hit, a narcotic flood of pleasure straight to the core of her. Clara drank, and with each pull, she felt Lila’s resistance melt. The student’s hands, which had been pushing feebly at Clara’s shoulders, now clutched at them. Her legs buckled.
Clara held her up, slamming her body harder against the wall as she fed. The feeding was intensely, perversely intimate. She could feel Lila’s memories flicker at the edge of her perception: performance anxiety, a strict father, the secret thrill of a B+ on a difficult exam. Clara swallowed it all, gulping down her mediocrity and her quiet dreams.
Lila’s free hand fumbled between their bodies, her fingers sliding over the front of Clara’s trousers. She was wet, her movements clumsy with descending bliss. “Feels… God, it feels…” she slurred.
“I know,” Clara growled against her throat. She released Lila’s wrist, letting her own hand dive between Lila’s legs, under her skirt. She found her soaked and hot. Clara pushed two fingers inside her, curling them hard. Lila shattered immediately, her body convulsing around Clara’s fingers as her blood flowed into Clara’s mouth. The climax prolonged the ecstasy of the feed, a feedback loop of stolen vitality.
Clara drank until the struggles ceased, until Lila’s heartbeat was a faint, faltering flutter. She laid the young woman gently on the floor, her eyes glassy and peaceful. She was not dead, but emptied. A vessel.
From the main alcove, Clara heard a symphony of sighs and wet, tearing sounds. Brenda’s laugh, rich and full. The talkative boy was no longer talking.
Agnes appeared at the end of the row, pristine except for a single drop of blood at the corner of her mouth. She surveyed Clara, the ravished student, the dark bloom of satisfaction on Clara’s face. “How was it?”
Clara rose, licking her lips clean. The hunger was banked, not gone. It hummed now, a constant low note of power. “It was everything you said.”
Brenda joined them, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. She was glowing. “They’re all having a nice little nap. Won’t remember a thing, except maybe a very strange dream.” She eyed Lila. “You left her alive. Sentimental?”
“Practical,” Clara said, the word feeling alien and correct in her mouth. “She’s a regular. She’ll come back, and she’ll be weak, and easy.” She looked at her makers, her sisters. The library was theirs, every shadowy stack, every quiet corner. It was a larder. “What next?”
Agnes linked her arm with Clara’s. Brenda took the other. They walked past the silent, slumbering forms, past the open books and glowing laptops, back into the comforting darkness.
“Next,” Agnes said, her voice a contented purr, “we get better wardrobes. And then we discuss the faculty lounge.”