The Sacrifice of Marie Smith
This article is a part of Spooktober 2023 and is still a work in progress. Written for the Drown prompt.Contains references to torture of a woman and her unborn child. Marie Ó Conaill was the wife of a farmer and a mother but she had not always been either of those. Once upon a time, she had been Marie Smith. A hunter, one of the best and brighest of her generation. Until the day that she had wanted out and made a deal with the very thing she had been trained to hunt in order to get out. The vampire Ebio had orchestrated her supposed death with the promise of her firstborn and Marie had been so desperate that she had taken it. She had been supposed to be safe. Untrackable. Hidden from her own people and vampires. Marie had had fourteen beautiful years with her kind, gentle Uilliam - who had loved her with more passion than she had ever experienced in her life. And then Cael Ward, the Walking Death, had come to her door. He had wanted to kill her husband, to kill her babies...her beautiful boys. Even knowing that one day Ebio might find her brave Darragh, she couldn't subject him or his brother to what Cael would do to them. Ebio would at least wait until her son was older before taking him. Cael would torture him as he was, at the tender age of twelve, and would kill him. Or worse, would try to Turn him, cursing him to a eternal life as a child. Instead, Marie sacrificed herself and the unborn child in her belly. Cael Ward hadn't been able to resist not just the chance to torture the hunter that had killed his once favorite fledgling, but the chance to taint a babe still in the womb with his blood. As much as she knew that he was a monster, Marie also knew that Cael would forget about her sons if she gave him enough to sate his sadistic nature. She and her third child would be more than enough. "Stop," she begged in a whisper, her body swinging slightly from the rope she had been hanging from for...she didn't know how long now. Her wrists were worn bloody, the strands of the rope having torn her skin raw, but that didn't matter. The blood was in her. Changing her. Healing her wounds and keeping her clinging to life. Cael had been drowning her in it since he had taken her. Even though she could no longer remember how long it had been since she was taken. Since she had bartered her life and that of her unborn child's for her husband and sons. It wasn't enough to Turn her, no, Cael was too smart to let his prey get away from him so easily as that. Marie knew though what the blood of a vampire could do even if it never fully made you one of them. A calloused hand slicked with blood - her blood - grabbed her roughly by the chin and pulled her head up from where it had been slumped into her chest. "Oh, sweet Marie," Cael purred as he looked at her, a sadistic smile painting his blood spattered face. "I'm not done with you yet. You still have so much suffering left to make up for what you took from me." She stared at him for a long moment, wanting to beg, wanting to plead...anything for the pain to stop. For the slicing and cutting to her limbs to stop. For him to not break her fingers again and again and again. She knew, though, that no begging would make him stop. If anything, it would make him do worse to her. It was a small favor that Cael was only prone to torture of his female victims and not to taking their bodies by force. Marie at least didn't have to live through that and have those foul hands be the last that touched her in her most private of place. At her silence, he smiled and stepped forward, kissing her roughly on the mouth before growling, "Good girl," against her lips. Then he took a step back and looked at her, regarding her hanging, trembling form like an artist did their painting or a sculptor their work. "Although," he added airily, "I believe we're almost to the end of our time together. Of course, I would love carving bits out of you until the end of time but I also have other things to do, much as I would enjoy it. Just a few more days...and I'll let you go." Marie managed to glare at him and hissed, "I was a hunter, Cael. There is no just letting me go." Cael chuckled and lifted the hand that still held the bloody knife he had been using on her, an ancient looking blade that looked like it had been hammered roughly into shape with a hilt made of yellowed bone. He waggled it at her for a moment with an amused look on his face before saying, "You were indeed a hunter, sweet Marie. The finest that your clan has produced in its four centuries of existence, perhaps one of the finest amongst any of the the clans to date. And then you disappeared, supposedly dead." His form then blurred to her eyes, moving so fast that it looked like he disappeared for a moment. Cael was suddenly right in front of her, grinning so wide it looked like it would split his face in half as he ran the flat of his knife across her child swollen belly. It did not draw blood as it ghosted across her skin but she still held her breath, inhaling sharply with a gasp, until she felt the bloody blade come to rest against her lips. "But I knew," he whispered, "that no not even a century old pup could have defeated Marie Smith. Not she who killed Bloody Iatrokles without taking a scratch and hunted down the wily Kukrit Tulaya on the open sea." Tapping the knife against her lips, Cael continued, "Grisha Dafovska cut a bloody swath across eastern Europe for nearly two hundred years before he crossed paths with you. A beautiful man with beautiful knifework. Shame." "And now, here you are. Underneath my knife. My blood in your veins." Shaking her head, Marie said, "I'll never be a vampire, Cael." "Oh, sweet thing, I don't want you to be one of us." His hand cupped her belly then and he sneered, "I want you to live with the knowledge that your child is forever tainted by my blood. That it will grow up and one day be cursed to live eternally. You hunters may kill yourselves when you're tainted...but I've never seen a one of you with the balls to murder your own child. And given that you threw yourself at me to save your sons, I don't see how you're any different." Tears welled in her eyes because he was right but she didn't want to give him the satisfaction. Instead, Marie lifted her chin and hissed, "Whatever they become, they won't be a killer like you." Cael chuckled and then smiled wickedly as he ran the blade of his knife down his tongue, blood welling from the wound, and she braced herself for what was coming. He then grasped the back of her head with his free hand and, as the blood spilled down his chin, purred, "Don't make promises you know you can't keep, sweet Marie." Then he pulled her into another savage kiss and the lukewarm, iron tang of his blood surged into her mouth for the God only knew what time. Marie tried to fight it again, tried to sputter, tried to pull away...but he was too strong and she was weak. Despite opening her throat to it and swallowing, it still felt like she was drowning.
Marie Smith after her torture, created using Playground AI
Timeframe: 1653
Location: Unknown, Ireland
Event: Marie Smith, pregnant with her third child with Uilliam Ó Conaill, is kidnapped by vampire Cael Ward and tortured.
Consquences: While Marie Smith manages to escape from her tormentor when he lets her go, she cannot go home. As the vampire blood changes her and her unborn child, she goes to the only other ally she has left.
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