Karen in Castle Barenczy

by Aletessa -- http://deviantart.com/aletessa

The sky had darkened into night by the time Karen reached the short bridge that led to the castle gate.  She'd kept her doubts at bay throughout her long walk up the winding forest road, but now that she was confronted by the castle itself, her heart was hammering at the thought of going any further.  But she had no choice; her friend Ella had disappeared from the village, a few days before, and had neither returned nor been found.  If she was still alive, and Karen refused to think otherwise, this was the only place left to look.  But the villagers shunned the castle, even to the point of pretending it didn't exist; none of them would come here, which left Karen to make the journey by herself.

It was empty, she told herself. The Countess Barenczy was dead, her reign of vampiric terror ended decades before Karen was born.  The only things to fear in the castle were crumbling walls and wild animals that had found shelter.  But that hadn't prevented her from bringing a cross and a stout walking stick with her.  Lighting her lantern gave her an excuse to pause a little longer, but finally she started across the bridge; it was only leaving the trees and the rushing waters below that made it feel like it was growing colder as she went.

The bridge led through an archway and led into a small courtyard.  A second arch to Karen's right appeared to lead to another courtyard, but ahead of her was a door into the main castle.  It too was slightly open.  Karen looked at the earth, hoping to see some trace of Ella's passage, but there was nothing.  She pushed the door, a little surprised that its hinges remained quiet, and found herself in a large, long-empty kitchen.  She removed her cloak, revealing the blue dress and black corset beneath; she shook out her long pink hair, and laid the cloak on a wide stone shelf.  The normalcy of the act was reassuring.  But she still kept the stick with her as she went from the kitchen into the hallway beyond.

The corridor had no windows, cutting off even the scant light of the moon; Karen checked her lantern, then continued past several small rooms until reaching what must have been the great dining hall.  It was empty of furniture or hangings; the only remainging decorations were carved fleurs and arms.  At one end of the hall, two flights of steps rose to a balcony, but the light from Karen's lantern wasn't enough to see anything up there but shadows.  The room made her feel tiny.

"Ella!" she called.

A movement on the balcony made Karen look up sharply, but the movement of her lantern made the shadows shift around, and whatever she thought she'd seen was gone.  If anything had been there at all; maybe it had just been the flickering of the lantern flame.  Still, she began to ascend the steps, holding the lantern as high as she could to throw as much light at the balcony as she could.  There was nothing there when she reached it, but another doorway led into another passage; someone could have gone through it... but why would anyone have not spoken to her, if they'd been there?

"Ella?" she called again, more tentatively.

She went through the door. To her left, the passage quickly vanished into blackness; to her right, it opened onto another balcony.  Which way would they have gone?  Karen turned right, but the darkness that was now behind her loomed closer as if to press against her.  She looked back, but there was no sign of movement. Sticking with her first decision, she proceded onto the second balcony.  It was at a right angle to the first, and overlooked the castle's entrance hall; this time there were still tapestries adorning the side walls, though they were too faded to make anything out, even with Karen's lantern joined by shafts of moonlight from the windows above the great door.

Apart from her own voice and the faint crackles and hisses of her lantern, Karen hadn't heard a sound since entering the castle.  The silence was becoming as oppressive as the stones.  The new balcony ran the length of the wall opposite the main door; there was another archway further on, leading back into darkness.  Karen made her way towards it, but as she got nearer, she realised it wasn't completely dark; and it wasn't moonlight that provided the illumination, but a torch some way down the passage before her.  A lit torch.  Someone was here.

She opened her mouth, but the cry died on her lips.  Instead she found herself creeping down the corridor until she reached the first door.  The handle was a huge metal ring; Karen turned it and eased the door open.  Every room she'd seen so far had been empty, but not this one.  A thick red carpet covered the floor, bookcases lined the walls; there were chairs, a desk, a reading table.  Someone wasn't just here, they were living here.  But who?  This stuff couldn't be Ella's; no one from the village could afford furnishings as rich as this, or as many books.  The name of the Countess Barenczy crept into Karen's mind; but it couldn't be her.  She'd been executed nearly a century ago.  Hadn't she?  Few people in the village even told stories about her now.

There wasn't anything in the room; Karen went to leave and almost shrieked at the sight of Ella standing quietly in the doorway.

"Hello Karen," she said.  "I hoped it would be you who came."

"Ella, why are you here?  And of course I would look for you, you're my friend."

"Come on, I want to show you something."  Without waiting for a reply, Ella turned and started down the corridor.

After a few stunned seconds, Karen followed.  "Wait," she called.  "What are you doing here?  Where did all the stuff in that room come from?"

Ella didn't stop, but she replied over her shoulder, "I found something out about myself.  I wanted to look into it."

"What?"

Ella was entering another room.  This one was furnished too, the walls hung with red velvet curtains, the floor painted to match, and a long wooden table in the centre.  Ella went to the latter, and picked up a book from its surface.  "The Countess Barenczy had servants, Karen," she said; her tone was still calm, but her body was quivering with obvious excitement.  "This is one of their diaries."

"Ella, what is this about?" Karen asked, hearing a slight tremor come into her voice.

"It reveals that she can be called back, to join with one of her descendants.  Like me."

Ella threw her head back, stretching out her arms.  All the torches in the room blazed bright, joined a second later by Karen's lantern; she flinched from the sudden brightness, the movement making her drop it.  Flickering golden light flowed from each of the flames, converging on the ecstatic Ella.  Before Karen's eyes her friend's skin glowed, then dappled with scales; her eyes slitted, claws sprang from her fingers, a forked tongue flicked from her mouth.

Karen took a step back as the newly serpentine figure fixed its gaze on her.

"The girl thought she would be rewarded for this resurrection," Ella... but not Ella now, said; her voice carrying a low hiss beneath the words.  "And she will.  But not for the reason she thought.  She is no descendant of mine, and her flesh fits me ill."

"Then let her go," Karen said.

"The moment I claim my true blood-kin.  Great-granddaughter."

"Th-that's not true," Karen said.  "Please-"

"Then why are you not surprised to see me?" the Countess asked.  "You knew to seek the girl here.  The memory of me has been intruding on your thoughts every moment.  You knew this journey was toward me."

Karen opened her mouth to deny it, but the words died before reaching her lips.  It was true; deep down, she had sensed the Countess's presence here.  But that wasn't going to mean any kind of claim on her; not while she had a living choice.  "Get out of my friend," she said.

"Then yield yourself to me."

"No."  Karen took a step back.

Ella's hair shifted and twisted, merging with the scaled skin into a nest of snakes.  Karen tensed, instinctively raising her stick; but the body was still Ella's.  In her moment of hesitation, the snakes lashed out, growing impossibly.  Two wrapped round Karen's wrist where she held the stick; a third round her other wrist. They tightened and contracted, holding Karen in place as the Ella-Countess stepped toward her.

A fourth snake stretched out to brush over Karen's face; she tried to twist away from it, but it kept up with her movements, flicking its tongue over her lips.  Karen pulled and wrenched at her strange bonds, but the snakes held firm.

"Allow me inside you, great-granddaughter," the Ella-Countess said.

"You can't- ughghl-"

The moment Karen spoke, the snake forced its way between her lips, gagging her; she could feel it inside, exploring, its tongue winding around hers in a parody of a kiss.  The snakes holding her arms drew them out to her sides, leaving her body open to two more, which crawled onto her breasts, nipping at her through the material of her dress.  They began to rake at her, tearing at the cloth to expose her.  Another pair of them were reaching lower, attacking her skirts where they covered her mound.

"Your flesh is mine, great-granddaughter, whether as vessel or plaything."  One of the snakes slid through a rent in Karen's dress, brushing and licking at her mound.  Another trailed around her now-naked breast, squeezing.

Karen tried to press her thighs together, but it was too late as the snake pushed its head between her labia and into her passage; its fellow had found its way into her skirts, and was nuzzling at her bud.

"As plaything or as vessel, great-granddaughter," the Ella-Countess repeated.  The snakes began to constrict around her breasts, brushing over her nipples as they hardened; the snakes inside her was writhing, stroking her walls with its tongue, while the other licked at her bud.

Karen tried to fight down the building pleasure, but the snakes were relentless.  The stick fell from her shaking fingers; not that it mattered, it hadn't done her any good, and now she was helpless in the snakes' grip.

Her legs were still free, but the Ella-Countess was still too far away to kick...  Her blood was pumping with waves of forced arousal as the snakes played her body.

Fire... the Countess had emerged from the burning torches, but she'd needed Ella's call to do it... maybe more fire could draw her back to whatever Hell she'd come from.  It was the thinnest of hopes, but the lantern was still beside Karen where it had fallen; and her legs were free.  Letting her desperation guide her, she kicked it into the nearest of the curtains; its glass cracked, and Karen silently begged the flame to catch.

The snake inside her took advantage of her movement to push deeper; Karen's body convulsed with burst of pleasure, as she neared her threshold.  Only the other snake gagging her prevented an involuntary moan from escaping her.  She pressed her thighs together again, but it was too late, as her invader slid still further.  Yet another snake had coiled around her waist, and was slowly pulling her closer to the Ella-Countess.  She felt the touch of fangs on her bud and nipples.

The curtain was burning.  But nothing about Karen's tormentor had changed; her snakes still worked her captive's body, their fangs rasping across her most sensitive flesh.

All of a sudden it was too much; Karen's legs went weak as the orgasm claimed her... she tried to scream it out of her... and then she was screaming.  The force of her climax had pushed the snakes out of her body, and the Ella-Countess was staggering back.

"How can you..." the monster breathed.

Karen wasn't sure of that either, but somehow the force fof her climax had become something else... a strength; she glanced at the spreading fire, then pointed at it.  "Leave my friend," she said.

The golden scales dissolved back into the vaporous light they'd come from; the snakes retreated, flickered, and vanished, leaving Ella's hair beneath.  The glowing steam flowed into the conflagration, as Ella fell to her knees.

Karen's newfound power deserted her as quickly as it had come, and she nearly collapsed beside Ella.  "Come on," she said, "we have to get out of here."  She pulled Ella up, and leaning on one another, the two girls retraced the route back out of the castle, pursued by the smell of smoke and flame.  They didn't stop until they were across the bridge; then they let themselves collapse to the Earth and look back at the burning castle.  Karen tried to pull her ragged dress around herself; she'd left her cloak, and without it it would be a cold walk back to the village.

"I'm sorry," Ella said.  "She'd promised to reward me if I brought her back.  And I thought if you were there, she'd reward you too.  I'm sorry."

"We're both alive," Karen said simply.  "It's over."  The first part was true... but somewhere deep inside body and soul, Karen was sure the second was not.  Whatever magic flowed through the Countess's veins flowed through Karen's too, and she knew; whether because of Ella or in some other way, she knew that one day she would face the Countess again.