An Education in Malice

by S.T. Gibson

“Right now?” Laura asked, sounding a little put out. I wondered if she would rather be left to her own designs for me, and the thought sent a pleasant shiver through my body. “Yes, Laura, right now.”

Why bring Laura, who doesn’t deserve a full share in your secrets?

“Your sire?” I echoed, taking another step forward. “Is she dead?” Carmilla asked. “Not dead,” De Lafontaine said, gazing down. “Merely sleeping.

“No, Ms. De Lafontaine.” “What is she doing down here?”

Without another word, the professor tilted Carmilla’s wrist and poured the blood pooling in Carmilla’s palm into the parted, mummified lips of her sire.

Then, impossibly, the corpse dragged in a heaving breath.

She found herself directly in the line of fire, and when the creature lashed out with a clawed hand, it was Carmilla’s lovely white neck that was slashed open. The sound that came out of me was ungodly. “No,” De Lafontaine said, her voice rising in pitch and intensity, approaching something like fury. “No, no!”

The cut was deep and merciless. She was losing a nauseating amount of blood, and fast.

“Get away!” I shrieked, waving my arms around like I was spooking a bear. “Get away from her, beast!”

leaving De Lafontaine and I alone with the dying Carmilla.

De Lafontaine cradled Carmilla’s ashen face, her thumb smudging blood across Carmilla’s cheek. “No, no, no,” she moaned. “Carmilla, darling, don’t do this to me. I will not accept this. Laura, open her mouth.”

“Live, damn you! Come back to me!”

Pure desire, distilled down into a heady elixir. It was to be, I realized with a creeping sense of dread, the rest of my life.

“What’s happening to me?” I moaned. “You’re changing,”

Her eyes fell on Laura, still scrubbing at the floor with shaking hands. Laura glanced up, her eyes bluer than I had ever seen them. Were they always that shocking shade of cornflower, or was I just now noticing? That awful desire coiled like a snake in my stomach stirred, and I wanted desperately for her to push me down onto the steps of the coffin and finish what she had started outside the dormitory.

“You won’t make it out of this tunnel if you don’t feed, Carmilla,”

“She could kill me.” “I won’t let her,”

I would not cry over Laura Sheridan, and I would not refuse the gift she was giving me. I would drink until I was satisfied without remorse or apology.

I swayed a little, leaning heavily on De Lafontaine for support. It was so relieving to have an excuse to cling to her.

Real fury passed across Laura’s face, like a parcel of clouds blocking out the sun, and for a moment she was Athena incarnate.

“I’ve taken everything from you,” she said after a long pause. “All because I couldn’t bear to be alone.”

“No, I’m not going to kiss you. All your appetites are heightened because of the change; you aren’t thinking straight.”

De Lafontaine released me, crossing to the window and pulling the curtains tightly shut. “Would you rather I tell you the truth or tell you a comforting lie?” she asked, her voice soft in the dark.

“What about Laura?” “She saw everything.” “Precisely.

“You can’t grow attached to every person you feed from, Carmilla, it’s not sustainable.” “I’m not attached,”

It was as though the events of the evening had finally caught up with me, and my body had realized just how much it had been put through. I was unconscious in moments.

To see me. She was happy to see me.

Carmilla gave me a smile as she brushed past me and began striding into the night. Her canine teeth, I noticed, were slightly pointed.

That did it. Something inside me caught fire at our professor’s name, and the resulting blaze was enough to keep me warm as I yanked off my sweater and bent down to unlace my Mary Janes.

“Is that all you can think about, De Lafontaine?” “That’s the only person you ever seem to think about.”

“Let me taste you again,” she said, her breath warm on my collarbone as she leaned in closer. “Just a little bit.”

Was she suddenly shy, I wondered, or was she uninterested in me now that she had gotten her belly full of blood?

I wasn’t sure where we were going, but I felt sure that we were both possessed by a morbid curiosity that would not be slaked until we found the person who had been screaming. As it happened, we found the body first.

It was one of the upperclassman girls, a French exchange student who had tried to befriend me during my first week at Saint Perpetua’s on account of both of us being foreigners.

“That wound isn’t clean,” I said, fixing Laura with a heavy look. “Something tore through the skin.” “Almost like teeth,” she agreed. “Isis. Do you think…?” “It has to be. De Lafontaine would never. And you were with me the whole time.”

De Lafontaine looked back at us only once, her eyes falling onto our clasped hands and her eyebrows furrowing in consternation.

“She was hungry, so I fed her. We had nothing to do with the body.” “Ms. D,” I said, keeping my voice low and respectful even as I pressed towards the truth. “That girl, she was… brutalized. Something tore her throat out. And if it wasn’t me, and if it wasn’t you—”

“Is this another play for my affections?” she asked quietly. “When will you understand that none of this is a game to me?” I asked, my voice raw with emotion. “Come here, Laura. Look at me.”

I pressed my open mouth to the wound on her knee. Laura clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle a cry. Whether of pleasure or of pain, it was hard to say.

“You can’t understand how good you taste,” I said hoarsely. “Like heaven.” “Heaven is far from where we are,” Laura said, still a little breathless.

“Please don’t leave me,” I whispered, while she was still under the water. My voice was so soft even I barely heard it. “Don’t leave me alone with her.” Another strident rap at the door. “The sun’s nearly up, girls. I won’t ask again.”

Carmilla and I didn’t speak for a few days after that, which drove me near to the brink of insanity.

“It should always be senior year,” she said with a conviction that surprised me. “I should always be twenty-one, with nothing but life ahead of me. It should always be sunrise, at the start of a new day.”

“Laura, sweetness, come here,” De Lafontaine said, cajoling.

“Both indicate a human who willingly surrenders their blood for the nourishment of a vampire. A companion has an informal sentimental attachment to their vampire, while a thrall indicates a more established relationship and a long-term commitment. There’s also usually some exchange of power with thralls, but I won’t bore you with specifics.” “Are companions… romantic attachments?”

Near a divan in a shadowy corner, a young man and a young woman knelt between the spread legs of an older man, alternately kissing each other and… Oh.

Laura swallowed hard and averted her eyes when she realized what they were doing. Virgin, I thought affectionately.

Carmilla absolutely glowed under the curious attention of Magdalena’s guests. She beamed, her cheeks pink as a rose, and introduced me proudly to everyone who made our acquaintance. “This is the magnificent Miss Laura Sheridan,” she would say, sweeping her arm towards me gallantly as she showed me off to various vampires and their human companions and thralls.

“Shall I find you a quiet bedroom to entertain yourself in?” she teased, pinching my hip. I tried to bare my teeth at her, but couldn’t help laughing.

Really looked, refusing to deny myself the pleasure. I looked at her rouged nipples and her fluttering throat, I looked at the way the young man mapped the contours of her jaw with his fingers, tipping her chin back to expose her throat.