Somewhile later, Tara suddenly awoke to find Morhalla seated upon the bed, her cold, long-fingered hands sliding over the girl’s bare body beneath the coverlet.
“So warm, so soft, so full of life,” the woman murmured, half to herself, fingers curling about the girl’s ripe breasts, eyes gleaming redly black and hungry in the faint glow of dying embers. Her purring voice, as it were, cast a spell over Tara, who did not resist or stir as those grave-cold hands crept between her thighs to caress and probe. But then, as the burning eyes came closer and the woman thrust the covers back, the bared knife was disclosed, flashing like silver flame in the dim light, every weird sigil luminous as if in warning. With a shrill cry, Morhalla recoiled, shielding her eyes. She rose, whirled, and suddenly was gone through the door.
And Tara, with an inward shrinking, knew what she truly was: an uigoi—a swamp vampire. She lay the cold blade between her breasts and strove to stay awake, but it eventuated that sleep claimed her.
When she woke with Lambence, Morhalla was again standing by the bed, lean and hungry. It seemed that her night-prowlings had resulted in no provender, for she was more gaunt than before, her thin, strong features wasted, eyes febrile. She fingered the coverlet with restless fingers, yearning to thrust it back yet fearing the cold blade of melded steel and silver.
“You are an uigoi, are you not?” Tara demanded.
“Let me drink from the fat vein that throbs in your neck,” the gaunt woman begged in a dry whisper. “You will know no pain, only a delicious lassitude, a voluptuous yielding . . . I will not drink freely ... I must make you last . . . only a little every night. ...”
Tara whipped forth the blade and bared it; Morhalla flinched away with a wailing cry. “You saved my life! You are responsible for it!” she cried harshly, plaintively. “Help me—I cannot feed as you do, from the wholesome things of the earth—I must have blood to survive, for in the blood is the life!”
Shaken with disgust and revulsion, Tara refused. At length, Morhalla slunk from the house to prowl the swamp and the evil woods beyond, returning hours later unsatisfied and even hungrier. She watched avidly from the width of the room as Tara ate the last of the bread and cheese and finished the stew that she had made.
“Pity me,” she moaned; “I waste for lack of rich, hot blood; I cannot live without it!” Then she burst into a horrible kind of weeping, dry-eyed and tearless, her thin shoulders shaking. Tara took her in her arms and comforted her as best she could.
She helped Morhalla to the bed. “Sleep a little, rest, conserve your strength,” she urged. Morhalla, obediently, stretched out, but found no rest until Tara’s hands, stroking lean thighs and fondling the firm, pointed breasts, strayed at last between her feverish thighs and plied and fingered therebetween with a knowing skill. The vampire woman climaxed with a sharp, husky cry, tensed all over, then sank into a sleep-like languour that was not quite slumber, and seemed somehow appeased.
Tara rolled herself into a blanket and sought her own rest before the hearth, which she had piled high with dry wood from the forest. The two passed a troubled night and Tara woke with Lambence to find the woman crouched beside her, fingering her warm throat where one great artery thudded with the pulses of her heart.
“Only a little, just a few drops,” Morhalla moaned between dry lips parched and feverish. “I will make you last, oh, very long . . .?” But Tara shrank from her and brandished the bright blade between them like a stout shield.
Later that day, after Tara had fed, with watchful eyes ever wary of the vampire’s sudden spring, watching the naked woman prowl the bare cabin like a caged beast, she sought the bed herself and composed herself for slumber. The woman seated herself on the edge of the bed and caressed Tara’s luscious body with tentative fingers while the War Maid clenched the magic knife, hidden under the coverlet but ready to be flashed forth at need. She permitted Morhalla to lay bare her body and to stroke and fondle as she would; the long fingers of the other at last dipped into the rosy lips that lay between her thighs, which parted half-willingly. They probed and played within as the girl tossed and turned, moaning with pleasure.
“I will comfort you even as you comforted me,” whispered the swamp vampire huskily. Then she stiffened, and withdrew long fingers suddenly from the inmost recesses of Tara’s girlhood. They were dabbled with rich scarlet.
“So that is what it was,” murmured the War Maid. “All day have I felt aches and pains and heaviness of head . . . but it is only my monthly courses, not swamp fever as I feared.” The woman stared at the pink-lipped slit between Tara’s naked thighs.
“If you will not let me drink the life-blood from your throat,” she said hoarsely, “then let me drink from that other blood which your woman’s body rejects. ...”
And she leaned forward, to lick and lap, thin-boned face buried between the lax and parted thighs. Tara lay back, swooning with delight as the agile and tireless tongue—hot and rough as that of a cat—explored her innermost being. Time and again, the clever tongue brought her to an explosion of ecstasy such as she had never known. At length, licking wet lips, the vampire withdrew, replete and flushed with new vigor, to curl up before the fire like a well-fed kitten.
Tara stretched and yawned and composed herself for exhausted slumber. Before she drifted off to sleep, however, she reminded herself drowsily that within three or four days she must find a snug haven elsewhere. For once her monthly flow had ended, Morhalla would again be lean and famished, and begging for the fat vein that pulsed in her throat.